


Six Hundred and Twenty Eight Years

by Tynytyg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, I'm gonna tag the main characters because why not, I've posted this on tumblr already but the format here is a lot more accessible so, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Universe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Princes & Princesses, Swords & Sorcery, Vampires, War, do I have to tag the torture if its only in one chapter and its really vague anyway, here it is again!, here's my babies, i love them, lots of them lmao, pls be kind, that happens, um
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5862640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tynytyg/pseuds/Tynytyg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This one's short and sad and I'm not sorry</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Something of a Prologue

Louis Liandrionson Dukeson Kisena Lefebvre tet Lefebvre was born in the late winter of 18514, to a well respected noble family in south-central day. He was raised as a probable heir to a large fortune like that his family possessed should be, and took well to it. He enjoyed reading and horseback riding and fencing equally, and his family had high hopes for him. The head of house, Liandrion Lefebvre, and Louis's father, had grown up in the capital and married a wealthy heiress in the south when his older brother had inherited everything worth having that his own family had to offer him. He had been close personal friends with King Richard Sunfire quite by accident; growing up at court, one day he had been exploring and had encountered the then prince, who was perhaps twelve at the time, and they had become fast friends, because both had lacked boys their own age who their parents deemed safe to play with. In the year 18526, Louis and his father visited Liandrion's old friend, the ostensible purpose of the trip being to expose Louis to court and to allow his father and the king to catch up, and almost accidentally, he met the young prince. A ten year old boy with a mop of unruly looking blonde curls and an impish smile, Arvol Sunfire seemed like a bit of a spoiled brat to Louis, but their parents deemed them acceptable playmates and frequently left them to their own devices in the echoing corridors of the palace while the adults talked about Important Matters which they, as children, could know nothing of.  
Walking around Arvol's ancestral home, exploring and chatting and always managing to get lost but then somehow figure out where they were again, Louis discovered that the boy was not what he had at first seemed. He had a sharp mind for a boy two years younger, and was rather unsettlingly perceptive, with a streak of wit that he didn't seem to exercise often. Around adults of all sorts, from servants on up to nobles, he acted the part of a reckless child, but when the two boys walked alone, Arvol was a different person. It intrigued Louis, and one day as they were climbing a disused staircase in the empty back part of the servant's wing, he asked the prince about it. "Arvol, why do you act like a little kid when we're around adults?" Louis interrupted Arvol's rambling discussion of architecture and the weirdness that something like this would be built and then unused  
Arvol blinked "Because I am a little kid." He replied easily  
Louis shook his head "That's not the reason, you're still a little kid when it's just the two of us, but you talk like a grown-up, so why?"  
"I dunno, I guess... I guess it's 'cause that's what they expect? I'm the baby prince who's going to grow up and be a great king, and if they think I'm just a little kid they won't start 'specting me to act like a grown-up prince all the time yet. I dunno how long I can act like a kid, but I'm going to try to do it for as long as I can. My father is always talking about 'Childhood' like it's some sort of thing, y'know? Like an actual thing you can hold on to. But it's not, and so I'm pretending so His Royal Dadness doesn't get all sad again like he did when I tried to talk to him about this stuff. I'm glad you're around though," Arvol smiled at Louis "You seem to get what I'm saying and you're a kid too."  
"I am not! I'm a young man." Louis retorted almost on instinct.  
Arvol laughed, then almost tripped backwards down the stairs, catching the rail to stop his fall, still laughing a bit. "You are so a kid! You're only two years older than me!"  
"I'll be a man in a few years!"  
"That doesn't mean you're one /now/." Arvol pointed out  
"My father says I am!" Louis retorted  
"That's just because he wants you to act like it, and look at all the pretty girls here at court." He made a face  
"Girls are nice and all, but all the ones I've talked to here were vapid and flighty." Louis replied doubtfully, quietly proud of his vocabulary  
"What does vapid mean?" True to form, Arvol wasn't the slightest bit embarrassed by his lack of knowledge, which took all the joy out of knowing something that he didn't.  
"Brainless."  
"Oh. Yeah, but most of them are acting too." Arvol smiles  
"How do you know?"  
"Because I talk to them whenever we're alone too. None of them have a chance to become queen by me personally, but they're all hoping for their daughters who aren't at court yet, girls don't come to court until they're at least fourteen by the way, and so the older women all dote on me. It's kinda nice." He grinned impishly, "I get sweets out of it, anyway."  
"You're really using that influence just for sweets?" Louis was mildly shocked.  
"Well yeah, you've gotta use the opportunities that are offered to you, right? That's what all my tutors keep telling me."  
Louis shook his head, a bit mystified. "Court is weird."  
"Weird." Arvol agreed, nodding, as they reached the end of the hall at the top of the stairs and stood before a closed door with a dusty doorknob "But it's home." He reached out and opened the door.


	2. A Ceremony, A Princess, and a Gamble

Not long after the exploring incident, which had resulted in the floor falling through, Louis's father took him home. Arvol's broken leg would heal, and all of the adults had been more amused than angry, with the exception of Arvol's mother and the servant whose room the two boys had fallen into. The next time Louis and the prince saw each other, Louis was being introduced formally to the court, four years later, in his best doublet and with a composure he'd learned at the hands of a particularly stern arms-master. The ceremony of introducing the youth to the king's court had existed for as far back into history as Louis cared to think about, and was mostly used these days as an opportunity for the great families to show off their wealth and progeny, with equal relish, and for the lesser nobility to have a chance at a position in the palace or the bureaucracy which ran the day-to-days of the kingdom. The greatest of the families, the Sunfires, were to present their oldest daughter, as she had just turned sixteen and was now available as a marriage option for alliances. The lesser families went first, beginning with a timid and bookish looking boy in a green doublet that looked like it had been doing this service for multiple members of the family and was a bit too big on him. Louis watched other young men and women, all of them sixteen or would be within a few months, filing past without much interest, except to identify the house crest of each as they walked by him. There, a young lady of Julin, and there a young lord of Kigol. A Honnite, a Noima, and a Pirnn, none of them particularly interesting. One young woman caught his eye, late into the ceremony, a few announcements before he himself would get up and enter the throne room, announced as Lady Caria Wreneston. She was dazzlingly beautiful, with long, chestnut colored hair in bouncing curls, loose, unlike most of the other ladies. Large, icy blue eyes and fine facial features, high cheekbones and a small, delicate looking nose distinguished her further, but the greatest difference between her and all the ladies who had passed by before her was her bearing. She held her head high and like a queen, like someone who is respected simply because she should be. "Regal" was the word that popped to mind. Louis identified the gold on black Wreneston sigil on an amulet hanging at her throat, and watched in astonishment along with every other man in the room as she glided past, gown rustling slightly. As she walked, folds of the gown moved, revealing the black velvet underneath the sparkling gold. A small coronet rested atop her head glittering with diamonds in the candlelight. It was, in all, a stunning statement.  
The heir to Lacloria walked by and was little noticed in his white and silver, and Louis heard his name being called, snapping him out of his daze. He stood, adjusted his pearl and green doublet, and passed a hand through his own too-pale hair, and walked towards the doors. They swung wide again onto a throne room he had seen once before, and thereafter avoided in his previous visit. Throngs of elegantly dressed nobles stood or sat to either side of a long corridor stretching what looked from where Louis stood like a mile to the glittering throne. The high chandeliers on the ceiling lit the room with a blaze of candles, and braces of candelabras stood on shelves high along the walls. Everything was bright and gold and quartz and marble, and Louis allowed himself to stand in awe only for a moment, before beginning the long walk down the aisle, with every eye in the room on him. He looked forward towards the throne, and walked with his head held erect, and saw the king in his blue and gold seated upon the Great Throne of Day Court. To his left and a bit behind sat the queen, on a much more comfortable looking cushioned chair, and to the King's right sat his heir, golden hair catching the firelight and blue eyes twinkling as he waved and smiled at Louis, who had to fight not to wave or smile back. He allowed one corner of his mouth to twitch up slightly to let Arvol know he still remembered him, as he reached the end of the aisle, paused, and bowed deeply. The king nodded to him. "Welcome, heir to Lefebvre. We have high hopes for you and your family."  
He knew that these words were spoken to every nobleborn who walked down this aisle, but it warmed him nonetheless. He fancied the king had said it with sincerity, perhaps more sincerity than he had used when speaking to others. "Thank you, your majesty. I will endeavor to fulfill your hopes." He rose from his bow and stepped to the right, as he'd been instructed, to stand beside Kaleric Lacloria and wait for Liam Orphelius to arrive with his usual pomp and circumstance. Liam entered with a fanfare and strutted down the aisle like he knew he belonged there, and maybe he did because Louis had heard talk of a marriage between him and the oldest daughter of the Sunfires. They likely would wait until Arvol had been formally introduced as heir, two years from now, but who knew. It was court, anything could happen. Then the princess entered, and the room grew hushed. She had her mother's radiantly beautiful features and lavender eyes, and the same golden curls as her father and brother. In the blue and gold of Sunfire she was stunning. The assembled nobles watched her walk to the front of the chamber in muted awe, watched as she curtsied with enviable grace, and listened as the ritual words were exchanged. The girl, instead of taking her place beside Liam, climbed the two steps to the dais, and Arvol stood, smiling, and offered her his chair. She sat, while he held the back, and then stood behind it, in a place where normally a servant would stand. Everyone in the room was watching the two, in shock, but for Louis and a politically perceptive few, who watched the king. The king looked just as startled as everyone else. Arvol turned to his father "My sister and I have long discussed the fact that as oldest, she does not sit at your right hand. I thought that, if only for tonight, she might be granted that honor." He smiled, and Louis had to remind himself to breathe. This was a dangerous move, even if it was only for convenience or for one ceremony. In effect, Arvol had just announced to the assembled nobles that he was willing to give precedence to his sister, which meant that an argument could be made that anyone his sister married should rightfully be king. Now his father would be forced to wait the prerequisite two years until Arvol was of age to be declared legal heir. Louis was suddenly dreadfully curious as to what would prompt Arvol to do that.  
The king considered it for a moment, and then nodded. "My daughter is welcome at my right hand."  
"Thank you, father." The girl said, relief in her voice. She smiled at her father, who smiled slightly in return, and the room returned suddenly to its previous volume, only a bit louder as nobles began to rise, everyone but the introduced youths heading for the grand dining room, where a feast was laid out for them. The king and queen rose last, so as not to inconvenience anyone, and led their daughter from the room. The nobles who had been introduced that night (with the apparent exception of the Sunfire princess) were given the rest of the evening to themselves, presumably to get to know one another, but they all already knew who everyone in the room was. They would be expected to appear at the ball the next night of course, but tonight the smart ones would be making alliances with stronger families, but the majority would spend their free time getting drunk.  
The majority of the young men and women filed out, a few stayed for a moment to ask if Arvol or Louis would come with them on their way out, but they declined politely and waited until everyone was gone. "It's nice to see you again." Louis said into the slightly awkward silence that followed the closing of the doors.  
"Gods I've missed having someone around I can actually talk to." Arvol said suddenly, drawing his knees up and putting his chin on them, leaning back a bit in his father's throne. "You know, I can't trust anybody here at court? And you're the only one from the big five families that doesn't spend all year here, except that Caria girl, and I bet she's about to start, at least until she gets married off." He stopped the flow of words for a moment "D'you think I might have a chance with her before some noble snatches her up?" He asked a bit wistfully  
"Not unless you use your princely influence, which I wouldn't recommend, it's bad for your image." Louis suggested, rather bemused by the immediate and utter trust that Arvol, who he hadn't spoken to in four years, was suddenly showing.  
"Anyway, I bet you haven't heard the rumors of what's been going on here at court these four years, have you?"  
"I get vague updates, but no, I've mostly been focusing on hypotheticals and not getting knocked on my behind by the new arms-master. What's been going on?" Apparently Arvol needed someone to talk to, and Louis was more than happy to be that someone, because, after all, one must seize opportunities as they come. Arvol himself had told Louis that.  
"Well, you know that Liam Orphelius is an ass, I'm sure?"  
"That's a rather odd beginning, but yes, I've met him a few times."  
"Alright but nobody much knows exactly how /much/ of an ass he is, he's been courting my sister since they were thirteen, and his father has been oozing around trying to persuade my father that a marriage between the two would be mutually advantageous to our families. It hasn't really been working, and Marie wasn't at all worried that she'd get stuck with him. She kinda has a thing for Kaleric Lacloria, actually, but she's gotten a few pictures from princes of other kingdoms by way of overtures and the prince of Nachtrech is actually really attractive and she's been writing him back and forth for two years, and they're basically in love. It's kinda gross. So, last year Orphelius changed tactics, he started trying to persuade mother that it would be a good idea. She fell for the romance of the whole thing immediately. I love my mother, but I did not get my intelligence from her side of the family. Anyway, mother promised Marie to Liam. Marie hates him, actually, ever since he caught her in the corridor two years ago and tried to feel her up and she kneed him in the testicles and then she got in trouble." He said the final part with well contained fury, the only outward signs were the slight tightening of his fists and the hardness in his blue eyes. "So that's the situation. The wedding was supposed to happen next year, and the formal declaration of engagement later during this party. But see the thing is, Dad's dead set on not handing the Orpheliuses the kingdom. So if I'm in a tenuous place regarding my heir-ship, he'll renegotiate from here to the seven hells and back to stop the engagement from being announced before I'm declared heir." He finished, as if he'd come up with a brilliant plan.  
Louis had to admit it was functional, but the problem lay with the fact that if the king could not properly renegotiate with the Orphelius family, Arvol would no longer be heir apparent, but he would still be a threat to Liam, and the fabulously wealthy Orpheliuses had a nasty reputation when it came to people who were threats to them. They tended to take long walks and not come back. "Arvol you can't rely on your name to protect you from the backlash of this if your father isn't willing to negotiate at their mercy, or won't accept some of the conditions they want." Louis cautioned  
Arvol waved a hand absently "I'm not, I'm not. I can protect myself, if it comes down to it. But I can't let mother's thoughtless actions ruin Marie like this. I'm working on a way to get through to Mother but I need a little more time. Hence the enforced two year delay."  
"That's an awful gamble, Arvol."  
"You think I don't know that?" He snapped suddenly, looking up at Louis. "I know it's a gamble, I know I'm just a kid, and I know I don't know anything. Trust me. I've been told that several times. By everyone. I thought maybe you'd be the first one not to immediately say it." He said, bitterly.  
"Arvol, that's not what I said."  
"Right, nobody comes right out and says it, but that's what they all mean." He sighed and leaned back in the chair, plopping his arms down on the arm rests and letting his legs fall. "It's what they all mean." He repeated in a defeated voice.  
"Well it's not what I mean." Louis said firmly, coming and sitting down in the chair Arvol's sister had recently vacated. "I think it's a genius plan, and incredibly brave and stupid, and just the sort of thing someone who should be king someday would do. I know I would never do anything like this, not because I don't think it's brilliant, but because I would be terrified."  
Arvol blinked and looked up at Louis "Really? You don't think it's- well I mean you said stupid, but you also said genius and-" he cut himself off "Let me start over." He said, looking like he'd confused himself. Louis just laughed.


	3. A Friendship, A Girl, and A Conflict

He spent that year at court, talking with Arvol more and more frequently, and also making friends among his peers. The others who had been brought out at the week-long introduction party quickly fragmented into cliques based mostly on monetary ability and overall rank. Those who had walked into the room first did not mingle with those who had walked in last. This, unfortunately, meant that Louis spent a great deal of time pretending to enjoy the company of Liam Orphelius and Kaleric Lacloria. Caria Wreneston generally avoided her male peers, preferring to spend her days with the daughter heirs of Honnite and Pirnn. Arvol was much distracted by the demands of his tutoring and his father wishing him to learn to run the country properly, which was completely reasonable. Louis still missed him, and was for some reason always disinterested in the things that seemed to fascinate his peers. Liam and Kaleric spent most of their time discussing women and how to persuade them into one's bed, though they seemed to have little if any actual experience trying out these things. Once, Louis got drunk with them and some whim prompted him to show them how to truly get a girl's attention, and they had stood in awe of him for almost an entire month as within moments of approaching a girl, they'd left together. He had politely disengaged himself from her at her front door, of course. Bastards were inconvenient and troublesome, as were their mothers, and Louis didn't want that kind of distraction this early in his life. The girl in question was quite beautiful and quite put out when he did not deliver upon his implications, but for some reason his drink-fogged brain could not produce a good reason not to go to bed with her, at least not one he could tell her. He just wasn't interested. He knew, of course, that either of the two he'd left in his wake as he'd left the tavern would have bedded the woman in a heartbeat, but it just didn't seem to appeal to him. He put it down to the cheap ale and wobbled home.   
His family owned a town house in the capital, of course, as all of the major families did, and Louis had a floor all to himself, because he was a young man in the capital now and was expected to entertain. He threw a few parties of course, simply to see if he could properly host one, and invited most of his year-mates and of course the heir apparent. Arvol had practically glittered in his role of sparkly young prince with not a care in the world. Louis personally hated the persona, the overconfidence and outright arrogance, and the way that everyone else seemed to accept it. Still, he hosted and pretended not to notice.  
They became much closer friends, as the years wore on. Two years after Louis's introduction ceremony, there was a double celebration for the bringing-out of the firstborn son of the Sunfires and for his subsequent coronation as prince and heir. There was some audible grinding of Orphelius teeth when Marie was married the next year to the Nachtrech prince, but nothing further came of it except for the Orphelius clan losing some money as they cut down their trade with Nachtrech as a clear message of their disapproval. Louis discovered that Arvol rarely relaxed, and when he did it was only around his bastard half-brother Usil, Louis, or Caria Wreneston. As Louis and Arvol came to be better friends, Louis came to know Caria as well. She was a delightful girl with a bit of a spiteful streak in her nature if one got on her bad side, which most people went well out of their way to avoid. Her laugh and voice were musical, and everyone who knew her was at least a little bit in love with her. She agreed most fervently with Arvol on the topic of Liam Orphelius, and although she was fond of Kaleric Lacloria on general principal, they were not close. When she threw parties, they were well planned and perfectly executed, always with some surprise for those who stayed all the way to the end. Once, it was fireworks. Another time, a magician who used actual magic. A different time, she managed to find some dancers from Nachtrech who danced in flowing silks to the music of strange instruments and were utterly enchanting. Caria Wreneston, in all, was perfect. All of her peers had at some point or another dreamt about marrying her, although Louis suspected that most of them dreamt differently than he did. When Kaleric and Liam went all tongue-tied and red-faced around Caria, Louis spoke smoothly and gently mocked their inability to form words. He knew that this woman would make an ideal wife, for reasons mostly pertaining to her cool exterior, beauty, intelligence, and skill as a hostess. He was genuinely fond of her, and she of him if her words were anything to go by. She'd referred to him as "truly delightful" and "a pleasure to be around" and smiled most sweetly at him.   
Louis felt the growing jealousy of his peers, and he wouldn't have minded in the slightest if Arvol hadn't begun to get snippy and keep secrets from him. When he discovered from a friendly servant that Arvol had been stealing out of the palace late at night, he had to find out what was going on. "Arvol," he began, walking into the heir's room without knocking, "You've been sneaking ou-" he froze mid-step. Caria Wreneston was sprawled on Arvol's bed, but that was not the startling thing. Arvol was leaning over her, looking up at Louis with a frustrated expression and her lipstick on his face.   
"Louis why do you always have to ruin everything?! Get out!" He stood, starting to come over. Louis fled.  
Walking home, he wondered to himself why Arvol would take the risk that sleeping with a peer out of wedlock posed. Honestly, he didn't think bedding any woman could possibly be worth the risk for scandal and talk, and the girl would have something to blackmail him with for the rest of his life. Of course, she would risk exposing herself as well, but if she did manage to become pregnant then she would have a child to use to either force him to marry her or as definite evidence to claim he had taken her against her will. Either way, it was a stupid decision, and Louis found himself irrationally angry at his friend. And at Caria as well, because it was an equal if not greater risk to her. If Arvol managed, with this stupid action, to impregnate her, she would have all the dangers that go with pregnancy and childbirth. Also, even if that didn't happen, she was running the risk that it would eventually come to light, and she could seriously damage her prospects of getting a decent marriage alliance. Louis stalked furiously into his house, slamming doors behind him and flung himself onto his bed. He looked up at the pearl-trimmed blue canopy above him. "How could they be so stupid?" He asked aloud "She at least should know better!" He rolled over and buried his face in his pillows, and tried not to think about the scene he'd walked in on. Caria, hair splayed out behind her, chest rising and falling. Arvol, curls falling in an unruly pile around his ears like they usually did, a bit messier perhaps. Lipstick staining his lips and a bit off to one side, evidence of a heated kiss. Breathless, and with an angry flash in his usually soft blue eyes. One hand still pressed into the bed beside Caria. Turning with his doublet clinging slightly to his shoulders because he was bent awkwardly.   
Damn hormones, Louis thought to himself, why am I thinking about how Arvol's eyes look when he's genuinely angry?  
He supposed he had appreciated the artistically pretty situation. That was all. He had been aesthetically appreciating both of them equally. And he was also furious with them both. Equally. That settled it for him and he sighed and rolled back over. People in romance novels did all kinds of stupid things for their personal amusement, but Louis had never understood that. He'd never much liked romance novels for that very reason, in fact. Perhaps they weren't so nonsensical after all. He'd always put Liam and Kaleric's odd desire to bed every woman in the capital down to some strange perversion that the two shared, but he'd seen Arvol eyeing women in much the same way, on occasion, and even had seen Caria glancing speculatively at several people. He had always assumed that they were both assessing the possible benefits of any given person's acquaintanceship, but perhaps he'd been wrong. His mother was always talking about things like his being a 'late bloomer' or some such, but he was nineteen years old and had never shown much more than aesthetic or political interest in much of anyone. He'd only become close friends with Caria and Arvol. He had friends, of course, but not ones he spoke to so candidly. He didn't particularly /like/ Liam Orphelius, but he could put up with him for the entertaining company of Kaleric Lacloria, who was worth it, because he lit up any room he entered with charisma. No one was really sure why Kaleric put up with Liam, but Louis assumed it was probably desire for alliance between his own house and the most financially well-off house. That was the only real reason no one had stuck a sword in Liam yet.   
Why would someone take the risk of sleeping with a peer for the simple enjoyment of the moment? Was it really that pleasant? Louis sighed and sat up again as someone knocked on his door. "Come" he called without any real conviction.   
The door opened and Arvol was standing in his doorway, hair still a jumbled mess, doublet still slightly askew, looking as if he'd come out after Louis as soon as he'd left. "Are you mad at me?" He asked in a small voice.  
"Of course I'm mad, Arvol." Louis tried to sound stern, but ended up just sounding tired.  
"It's just that you were taking so long to make a play for her that I thought you weren't going to. That's what she thought too.. but if you want I'll back off, I mean, she does-"  
It had taken Louis a moment to register that Arvol thought he was mad because he was jealous. He interrupted Arvol's rambling as he frequently did, "Arvol do you really think that I'm upset about the /girl/??" He demanded  
Arvol blinked "Well yeah, I assumed that the fact that I was kissing the girl you're in love with would make you a bit irritable..."  
"You think I'm in love with Car- no! Arvie you idiot, that's not why I'm angry! I'm angry because it's a risk and you should both know better, I couldn't care less whether you two... kiss, or anything! If you're bedding each other, it's a problem! Don't you laugh at me, Sunfire, this is serious!" Not even Louis could stay angry for long in the face of Arvol cracking up, even though he didn't know what was funny. He reverted to using his surname, instead.  
Arvol laughed for a long time, "You-" giggles interrupted his attempt at speech. "You think Caria Wreneston would have sex outside of wedlock?" He laughed "You really /don't/ know her, my friend."  
Louis smiled a bit despite himself, relieved. "Oh. In that case I'm not angry. I wish the best for both of you, and I was afraid you were getting yourselves into something you wouldn't be able to wriggle out of is all." He said, feeling like the words were slightly hollow. He changed tack "I /am/ angry about you keeping secrets and sneaking around like you have something to hide, from me of all people!"  
"Well I thought I did!" Arvol said in a lilting, laughing voice "Apparently not. Louis, you're a very good person, did you know that?"   
Louis stopped to consider it. He had never thought of himself as a particularly good person, and did not understand why this incident would suddenly make him in to one, so he just looked at his laughing friend in puzzlement  
"You have the opportunity of a lifetime, you can yell at a prince for doing something stupid and take a beautiful woman from him, and have bragging rights over every peer in the country for the rest of eternity, but all you're concerned about is whether we're being safe or not and that I've been hiding my activities from you. That's a thing that good people do. Therefore, you are a good person." Arvol explained, still smiling widely  
Louis considered that too. "I suppose I am, at that." He marveled, which sent Arvol off into fits of laughter again.


	4. A Realization, A Confession, and A Gift

Louis Lefebvre first realized he was in love with Arvol Sunfire on the young prince's twentieth birthday, watching him laugh as they were walking along the crest of a hill a few miles from the palace. He'd just said something particularly funny, and was laughing at his own joke, with the sun in his hair and his head thrown back, outlined against the forests and valleys of his home. Louis had always known he'd been fond of Arvol, but the warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the warm spring day tipped him off that something else was going on. They'd had a bond different from that of anyone else he'd known since they'd first met, when Arvol had complimented him he'd been more flattered than when other people did it. Louis, who was quite slow to trust, had easily believed everything Arvol said to be genuine, mostly because the prince spoke with such conviction that it was hard not to believe that he was absolutely sincere. Arvol had trusted Louis, as well, after four years of non-communication, with some of his most pressing and dangerous problems based on one short meeting in which they had both gotten in trouble. It was bizarre, and yet Louis found himself back as Arvol's friend, and they had grown into men together. Arvol had been the one Louis bitterly complained to when he had no shaving nicks to compare with his peers during his first year at court, and also the one he had gone to for help with discreetly bandaging his own face after the need to shave had finally arisen. Louis had been the one Arvol asked about sex, and had received a clinical description that Louis found in a health book somewhere in the vast Lefebvre library. They had helped each other through phases of awkwardness around girls, strange dreams and waking sensations, and every medical issue one could accidentally mistake for something serious and embarrassing enough not to go to a servant with. They'd slept in each other's bedrooms frequently, for everything from Arvol's recurring nightmares the year he visited the warfront against the Wild Ones, to which Louis responded with soothing words and gentle embraces, to Louis's late night need to discuss existentialism and whether or not anything really existed, which melodramatic maunderings were usually met with laughter and discussions of attractive women who were entirely too beautiful to be real, except when Louis didn't respond to this, in which case tactics changed to quiet words of comfort. Six years of friendship.  
He realized he was in love, because what else could this be? He had thought about it before, of course. He knew that there were people, called "sly" or occasionally "poofters", men who loved men. But he had never considered himself among them. For one part, he had known since a very young age that he was expected to marry a peer and produce heirs to the Lefebvre house, and obviously that would require him to be interested in females. He had never, he realized, bedded anyone. He'd never really considered it. He knew for a fact that none of the now-men who'd been his year-mates were still completely celibate, and was relatively sure that by twenty two most of them had gotten married and had at least one child. Liam Orphelius had married a girl from the year before them, and had a brood of spoiled children already. Kaleric Lacloria had fallen, apparently, off the face of the earth the year they were all nineteen, and Caria Wreneston visibly had her eye on Arvol. There was already talk of an arrangement. Louis had always felt that those rumors were slightly wrong, that his two closest friends couldn't possibly be marrying each other, they'd joked about it too much already. Perhaps he'd entertained unconscious ulterior motives for those thoughts.   
And there was Arvol, looking at him curiously, waiting as he did these days for Louis to speak again. They'd never had secrets from one another, and Louis didn't see any reason that this should be the first. "I just realized I'm in love with you." Louis told him frankly, glancing over to gauge his reaction.   
He'd been prepared for stunned silence, but he didn't really expect it to go on for this long. Arvol usually filled any silence quickly, even if he didn't have anything to say. It wasn't out of discomfort, it was out of dislike of silence and a sincere fondness for the sound of his own voice. Louis shifted his weight uncomfortably, watching Arvol's expressive face shift through a myriad of different emotions, and realizing that he had mapped every one of Arvol's expressions in his mind over the course of their six year friendship. The one it finally settled on was flattery. "Really?" Arvol asked in a still-stunned voice.  
Louis nodded, not really sure what to say now. He'd read that usually next came either rejection, followed by depression, too many romance novels, and iced chocolate, or acceptance, followed by kissing and happily-ever-after. At least, that was what happened when women and men said these kinds of things to one another. Perhaps for two men it was acceptance and kissing and then the depression, novels, and chocolate...  
"That's.. really flattering." Arvol smiled. "Someone who knows me as well as you do... Thanks Louis. Honestly. But um... I'm in love with Caria, and as fond of you as I am..." He tried not to be awkward and charming, but it didn't work.   
Louis smiled back at him "I know, I didn't expect anything, I just thought that since we've never had secrets, this wasn't the thing to start lying about." He smiled for Arvol's sake, but inside he was definitely feeling the call of romance novels and iced chocolate. "I don't think it should change anything." He shrugged, then got an idea and grinned "Happy birthday."  
Arvol laughed again, his full-throated, attractive laugh, tinged with relief that he hadn't just lost a friend. That night, the palace threw an extravagant party, which Louis of course attended, and he ate and drank and laughed, and everything was as it always was. At the end of the night, Arvol and Caria and Louis managed to extract themselves from the general festivities and wander outside to sit in the now-chilly garden outside Arvol's rooms with their spiced wines and specific gifts that they didn't want to get lost in the pile of overly opulent presents that various nobles had bestowed in an attempt to one-up one another. They had agreed years ago that personal gifts were not to exceed five gold crowns in price, and they were to be either ridiculous or truly meaningful, no in between allowed. Caria had opted for meaningful this year and had purchased a brass amulet when the three of them had visited the bazaar in Nachtrech on a visit to Arvol's sister Marie and her husband. Arvol smiled warmly and kissed Caria on the cheek when she presented it to him with a flourish. Louis had been banking on the laugh he'd get from his gift for months. He'd seen an old crown in a marketplace somewhere, and had purchased it and cleaned it up. It was made in the fashion of the kings of the 12000's, which meant it was extremely top-heavy and every 'jewel' on it was actually glass, some were missing, it had rings of metals around it, and it was probably horridly uncomfortable. He pulled the large package he'd been toting around for about half an hour up and plunked it on the bench beside Arvol "For you, your majestiness." He grinned, ears buzzing slightly from the respectable quantity of alcohol he had consumed over the course of the evening.   
Arvol looked mystified as he examined the outside of the package. "What could it possibly be?"   
"Well if you never /open/ it, we'll never know, will we?" Caria asked, grinning "Go on Arvie, I'm curious."  
He tugged the overdone cord bow that Louis had sloppily tied himself, and unwrapped the crown from its fabric cover. "Oh my gods, Louis." He began to laugh, as more of the ostentatious thing was revealed. It was red velvet encased in brass and encrusted with red glass, trying to pretend to be gold and rubies. Caria burst into laughter as well, as soon as Arvol lifted the thing and put it on his head. "Well, how do I look?" He asked with a grin.  
His two laughing friends gave him a pair of thumbs up and he took the stupid crown off to join in the hilarity, all of them trying to regain their composure, making eye contact, and losing it again. "Hey, don't I get a kiss too?" Louis heard himself protest, through chuckles.  
Arvol was just drunk enough to comply, leaning over and giving Louis a peck on the cheek identical to the one he had given Caria. Louis felt his cheeks heating up, and just prayed that the garden was dark enough that they wouldn't notice. "I didn't think you'd actually do it!" he choked out, then took a large drink of his spiced wine, and ended up coughing and sitting down heavily on the bench and causing another round of laughter.


	5. An Announcement, A Reaction, and A Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's short and sad and I'm not sorry

The announcement, the fall of the year Louis was twenty two, that Prince Arvol Sunfire of the royal family was engaged to be married to the Lady Caria Wreneston came to Louis not so much as a surprise, but as a bit of a final disappointment. He promptly retreated to his library with a blanket he hadn't used since he was ten years old, a pile of novels that his mother had left last time she had been in the house, and cried for a bit, before reading every single one of the books. Clinging to a shred of his dignity, he did not request that a servant find him iced chocolate. He pled illness to avoid the celebration of the announcement, but sent his best wishes and two ridiculous gifts, one finger-trapping mechanism he'd seen at a carnival when he visited home and one small basket with a piece of silk attached which could apparently be dropped from great heights then float safely to the ground. Louis was a bit skeptical about that claim, and said as much in the note he sent with it. Of course his attempt to avoid his two friends was completely ignored, as they showed up on his doorstep with cake and pushed past his servants to invade his library. "Are you too ill to move?" Arvol asked in a loud voice, entering.  
"Yes," Louis lied  
"No you aren't," Caria retorted  
"Don't come in here, you'll get sick too." Louis cautioned "I think it's dragon plague, and it'll spread to the whole city."  
They made sarcastic sounds of belief as they came in and set the cake down on the table beside Louis's chair. "I think we'll risk it" Arvol assured him  
"So, why are you avoiding company this time? Is it another bout of contemplating the infinite or just having a bad hair day?" Caria asked  
"I'm not that vain!" Louis protested, not answering the question "And I really am sick, honestly you two. I'm ill, I haven't eaten anything all day and I still feel nauseated, it's probably contagious." He realized, as he said it, that he actually hadn't eaten anything all day. His stomach made its displeasure at this decision very clear.  
Arvol looked concerned "Should I send for a physician?"  
Louis felt slightly guilty for making him worry "No, no, I'll be fine, it's probably just a little thing, it'll go away."  
"Louis if you're really sick enough to avoid a party, and with us no less..." Arvol seemed seriously concerned.  
"It's fine, really. Caria, help me out, I know when I'm sick enough to need a physician." He pleaded  
She make an unsure face then shrugged. "Arvol, Louis isn't stupid enough to avoid a doctor just on general principal if he really needs one, right?"  
Arvol considered it. "Alright. But promise me you won't be stubborn and you'll send for someone if it gets any worse."  
"I promise. Promise me you'll quit worrying?" Louis returned.  
"No promises," Arvol grinned  
"You're impossible." Louis sighed fondly  
"He honestly is, and I've saddled myself with him for the rest of my life." Caria smiled just as fondly at the prince. "What have I gotten myself in for, Louis? Remind me why I agreed to this?"  
She'd gone and ruined his suspension of reality, so Louis tried his best not to think about it, and said "Because he's rich and occasionally charming, probably."  
She laughed, and Arvol made a face. "Hey, that's not the only reason!"  
"No, darling, it's because I love you." Caria smiled at him.  
Louis made a sound of disgust that would've done his fifteen-year-old self proud, and waved his hands about his head. "Get the affection and cloying sweetness out of my library and leave me to my books, gods!" he protested, and they laughed, and waved and took themselves off.  
Louis cried again.


	6. A Declaration, A Resolution, and a Beginning

The Sunfire kings had always had the same policy when it came to supernatural creatures; unless they were hurting humans, they could be left to live in peace. When it came to vampires, however, there was no tolerance or mercy. The creatures were abhorrent and were hunted down quite regularly. While learning to protect himself, every young lord in the kingdom also received training in the most efficient ways to kill vampires, were-animals, and bloody nymphs. Nymphs and weres could be left alone, in their enclaves in the woods, where they mostly avoided contact with humans other than the ones who sought them out, but vampires could not be allowed to exist. The Lacloria family had been protesting the brutal treatment of the creatures for centuries, and of course hadn't gotten anywhere.   
When the war began, it was spring, and Louis was sitting in a comfortable chair in a private meeting room, talking with Caria about wedding arrangements, which was getting less painful as it became the main topic of conversation. When Caria was around, he could pretend that nothing was wrong. And it was almost true, the ache in his chest was almost gone. He was honestly happy that the two of them were so very obviously in love with each other. Caria was in the middle of a sentence, arguing with herself about whether she wanted blue or white flowers, when a messenger knocked politely on the door.  
"Yes, come?" Caria broke off and called, as both of their eyes went to the door.  
A man in Sunfire blue and gold livery walked into the room, slightly wild-eyed but otherwise calm. He bowed and then announced, "His Highness requests your presence, my lady, my lord."   
Louis stood, helping Caria up as a gentleman should, and they walked down the hall to Arvol's slightly smaller study, where he did most of the actual work involved in being king of Day, as his aging father sat on the throne and heard petitions. He was sitting, his desk littered with papers as usual, staring at a single, rather small looking scroll. He looked up when they came in.  
"Lacloria has declared that they're breaking away and forming their own, vampire-tolerant state." He said, voice quiet and sounding half hopeless and half angry.  
"Oh my gods..." Caria put one hand over her mouth.  
"Well we can't have that, now can we..." Louis murmured weakly. "I suppose this means a war is on."  
Arvol nodded, looking sick. "We can't let them do that, so we have to stop them. No one else is going to, and we can't let vampires have a haven like that, they'll sweep the world. I'm going to go talk to the blacksmith, and..." he looked at Caria with pleading eyes.  
She nodded, "I'll wait for you."   
"I'll go with you to the smithy." Louis said, getting up.  
"Louis you don't have to-"  
"You don't think I'm letting you go somewhere where there's likely to be fighting without me, do you? You'll have nightmares every night and if something happens to you, Caria will never forgive me if I'm not there to prevent it." Louis cut him off  
Arvol's sick expression faded slightly, and he smiled weakly. "I suppose she would, at that. Alright." He stood. "Thank you. Both of you."   
Louis nodded "Of course." 'We love you,' he did not add. He hadn't said it since that day in the woods and he wasn't going to ruin it now. He shared a glance with Caria, who smiled faintly at him, and followed Arvol out of the room.  
They walked together down to the armory, not speaking, walking in step and a bit too close for just a casual stroll. "So," Louis asked after a few minutes of tense silence "What are you going to do? Of course you'll have to tell your father first, and consult with him on how to announce this in the best possible light..."  
Arvol didn't reply for a long moment. Then he stopped walking, and lowered his head. "What am I going to do, Louis?" He echoed Louis's question. "I.. I remember the front against the Wild Ones, it was horrible. There was always blood, and yelling, and crying. I couldn't stand it if the entire country becomes like that. As it is I won't ever be able to visit Lacloria again. Louis, you know me better than anyone, up to and including myself. I'm not up to a war." Louis could hear the words that he wasn't saying in his tone of voice. Arvol wasn't saying 'I'm a coward' or 'I am afraid' or 'I have never been in a real battle' or 'I don't want to fight my own people'. He wasn't saying 'What if I'm not strong enough to stop it.' Louis could hear them all the same.  
"But you'll do it anyway." He replied in a low, calm voice, to words both spoken and silent. "You'll go and you'll do all the things you're not up to, and all the things that give you nightmares, because it needs to be done. Because you're the only one who can do it. Because I do know you better than anyone else, and you're not a coward. You are stronger than you think, and because you know that you can't allow those monsters to spread. Because it's not just a problem that will effect Lacloria and the closest surrounding provinces. It will grow and spread to the rest of the world, and because you, strong person that you are, will not allow them to bring that horror on the people you love."   
Arvol put one hand on the stones of the wall beside him. Then he looked up at Louis, his heart in his eyes. "Do you really believe all that about me?"  
Louis met his eyes, realizing that it was the first time in a long time he'd done so without flinching. "Yes." He answered simply.  
The vulnerability was replaced, slowly, with resolve and growing confidence. "Thank you." Arvol said, and nodded. "Alright. You're my best political adviser so I want your help putting a spin on the announcement so that it looks more hopeful and like it will be a quick little ride in the sunshine with a battle at the end and then everything will be alright again. Will you come with me when we go to get Lacloria?"  
"Of course. I meant what I said back in your study, I'm not letting you go anywhere near a battle alone, no matter how sure I am you can defend yourself and not freeze up like a green recruit. Which you are."  
"You've never been in a real battle either!" Arvol retorted, sounding more like himself.   
Louis grinned, relief allowing the expression. "Ah, but I've had them simulated for me. That terrifying arms-master I had when I was fourteen? He had some mage-blood back in his family somewhere and used to create battles in my mind for me. He ran illusions very well."  
"That's cheating." Arvol protested  
"Yes, but don't I always cheat? Come on, let's go see what your blacksmith can do about something to put between your heart of gold and some vampire's sword." Louis suggested, and they walked on, discussing whether or not Louis could still be considered without battlefield experience.


	7. A March, An Encounter, and A Warning

Louis stood beside and behind Arvol as he spoke with his father, and made suggestions as he spoke with the head herald. He walked with the prince down to the military headquarters in the city to talk with the assembled generals and decide how many troops to send and what strategies to use. When they rode out of the city two weeks later at the head of a column of soldiers in the sunlight, with morale soaring and a marching song starting up somewhere back among the ranks, he was still next to Arvol. Caria had come to see them off, but had vanished back into the palace as soon as she tactfully could. The men were in high spirits, and Arvol and Louis and the pair of generals riding along behind them were the only ones who truly knew what they were walking in to. Lacloria was a military powerhouse by itself, and with the unknown ability of immortals to whom night was a friend, fully half of the men now singing behind them would likely not live to return here. Arvol's expression was particularly blank, and Louis struggled to make his own features assume that same non-expression. The generals were riding and talking to each other, in low voices pitched not to carry.  
The borders of Lacloria were several days ride, a week and a half's march, from the capital. The king's road leading directly from Lacloria's stronghold to the capital city was flooded with refugees within days, people who had heard what their province had done, and who had anticipated the reprisal from the crown. The majority of them were minor nobles and craftsmen, few peasants and no one directly related to the Lacloria family. When the army reached the borders, there was a newly erected barrier across the road, and some soldiers in the white and silver Lacloria livery stood beside it, leaning as-if-casually on the barricade. There were great empty fields to either side of the road, but it was the sentiment that counted anyway. Arvol rode up to the men, also pretending that he didn't know exactly what was going on. "What, may I ask, is this barrier doing blocking my father's road?" He asked calmly  
"Providing a temporary block, until a real customs station can be built, sir." One of the soldiers, with sergeant's rank insignia on his sleeve, answered with a sharp salute.  
"Why would a customs station need to be built between provinces within the same kingdom, sergeant?" Arvol asked, still keeping up the facade, not wishing to begin the fighting here, with these men.  
"Surely your highness has heard that Lacloria is no longer a part of the kingdom of Day." The man answered uncertainly  
"I have heard a rumor that a rebel faction has declared itself independent, of course, which is why these men and I are going to the stronghold of the Lacloria family to find out whether or not these rumors have any basis in reality." Arvol responded pleasantly. His reference to the large army at his back as 'these men' and his easy attitude seemed to get his point across.  
"Ah. Then I suggest that your men cross through the fields to the left of the, because my orders prevent me from asking my men to move this barrier off of the road. And the man who owns the fields to the right has been known to release a particularly mean spirited bull from his enclosure when he sees anyone walking on his property."  
Arvol turned his charismatic, infectious smile on the man, who smiled back involuntarily. "Thank you." He said sincerely, then bent slightly in his saddle to give the impression that he was talking in confidence. "You know, if we find out that those rumors are true, being in Lacloria's army is likely to become quite unpleasant, and anyone who deserted a rebel force would be considered a hero by the crown, and accepted into the king's army at a pay grade most probably higher than that of the rebels' army." He said in the tone of a confession, or possibly friendly advice.  
The sergeant and his men were all looking speculative, as the column from the capital marched past, around to the left. Louis looked over at Arvol as they rode "What was all that about? Trying to steal away Lacloria's army before the fighting even starts?"  
"It was worth a try, and sergeants are the worst gossips sometimes, so I thought that if that rumor starts going around before we get there, we might have a smaller force to deal with."  
Louis hummed agreement, then added, "But the ones who stay will all be the fringe fanatics and the truly devoted."  
"Well yes, there's always a downside. But there will be fewer of them, so it might balance out in our favor." He said hopefully. Louis smiled and nodded, not saying anything else. Arvol could usually find a bright solution to most things, and it was rather endearing that he was still thinking along the lines of stopping the war before it started. Louis was considering how to minimize the damage and cut down the death toll, when it inevitably began.  
That night the column pitched camp a bit more carefully than usual, laying out the tents in their usual format but with an eye to the fact that they were now in hostile territory, even if it didn't seem like it. There were more guards than there had been at any point before during the march, and lots of them were clustered around the tent Arvol was sharing with Louis. "This is ridiculous," Arvol commented, noticing the soldiers, "They have better things to do than stand around outside my tent, like get proper sleep."  
"They may have better or more pleasant things to be doing, but not more important." Louis replied absently, flipping through some reports on the condition of the supply wagons.  
"Oh come on, I don't need this much protection."  
"But you do, you have to sleep some time, and so do I, and I know you don't like the idea, but you're actually not expendable, you know."  
"Everyone's expendable, excepting probably you, and Generals Kamien and Meric."  
"You're the heir to the throne Arvol, the rest of us are just here to do as we're told. You're the one giving the men hope for a quick campaign, and you're the one riding at the front of the column glittering like some sort of war god."  
Arvol made an embarrassed noise. "The armor glitters, I had nothing to do with that."  
"I did. I told the blacksmith specifically to make it unnecessarily shiny. It's important, Arvie." He looked up from his reports to smile at his friend. "Really, you're irreplaceable, which is why they're so worried about losing you. Probably the only way you could fire the men up any more is as a martyr, which, may I remind you, Caria would crucify me if you became."  
Arvol laughed a bit, and sat down "I suppose so. It still seems a bit ridiculous though."  
"It is, a bit. You could probably do with about half of those men, but they're worried about you. I'd suspect that only about seventy five percent of them have actually been assigned to guard duty here. The rest should likely be sleeping, but they care about your well being. Encourage that, it'll keep you alive."


	8. An Effect, A Panic, and A Loss

It began to rain lightly the next morning, and continued to do so, gloomy skies obscuring the sun, so that what light did filter down to make Arvol's armor sparkle made it seem like the sun had embedded itself in the armor, or was possibly glowing from somewhere inside Arvol himself. To a creature that feared the sun, the effect was probably quite impressive. Louis was quite proud of that. The morale of the soldiers remained high, as they marched though the rain deeper into Lacloria territory. They were watched by dull-eyed peasants and speculative looking soldiers as they passed, but they weren't stopped for the first three days of their march. When they set up camp on the third evening, Arvol voiced his confusion about that. "Why aren't they trying to stop us?" He asked, perplexed  
"Maybe they're setting something up, or trying to lull us into a false sense of security." Louis suggested darkly. The rain had done nothing good for his mood the past few days, and it was getting stronger, if the sound against the tarp over the tent was any indication.   
"Or they don't actually want to fight," Arvol retorted "don't ill wish."  
Lightning flashed. Louis sighed, "I'm not, rain just puts me in a bit of a melancholy mood. Sorry."  
Arvol shrugged "No trouble, I'm sparkly enough for the both of us."  
"You don't mind the gleaming and you know it, the men love it. You look like the sun has taken up permanent residence in your chest, which is probably quite disturbing to a lot of night creatures, namely the ones we're going to fight."  
"Granted. Was that what you were thinking of when you made suggestions to my blacksmith behind my back?"  
Louis wanted to take credit. "No, but it's a nice side effect. I was actually hoping that it would be all sunny the entire ride, and that no one who saw you would be at all confused as to where the whole 'Sunfire' name came from." He shrugged  
Arvol grinned "That would be a good effect. Go to sleep Louis, you're being honest, it doesn't suit you."  
Louis threw a rolled up blanket at him, but he did take off his mail and change into a soft shirt and crawl into his cot. "You should sleep too."  
"I will, I'm going to file a couple of these reports first, then I'll go to bed." Louis nodded in contentment as his mind substituted 'come' for 'go', and he drifted off.   
He woke several hours later to the sound of rain falling hard, and thunder crashing intermittently. He wondered for a moment, lying still, what had awoken him. It could have been the thunder, but after a few seconds of lying on his back categorizing the sounds in the tent he realized that it couldn't have been. It wasn't a sound that had dragged him from his rest, it was the absence of one. He could not hear Arvol's quiet, even breathing. Louis sat up, and looked over to the other cot in the room. It was empty, but not made. Arvol probably had gotten up to use the jacks, but he was afraid of thunder... any other day he would've woken a grumpy and disgruntled Louis and dragged him outside into the rain. A sense of foreboding seeped into Louis's consciousness, the closer he came to being fully awake. "Arvol?" He called sleepily into the darkness.  
There was no reply, but he hadn't really expected there to be one. He stood and found his trousers, pulling them on, grabbing his boots and strapping his sword on as an afterthought, and he was walking out into the rainy night. The missing guards should have alerted him that something was wrong, but he wasn't thinking. He slipped over the mud and wet grass of the camp over to the jacks. No one was there. He visited the cook-tents and the tactical room with the collapsible sand table which wasn't even set up, since it was only an overnight encampment, before he began to panic.   
He checked the horse lines, and Arvol's stallion was still there.   
He looked in the generals' tent, who both were still sleeping, and didn't respond to the draft he let in.  
He ran past the quartermaster's tent and to the wagons, as a last idea, to see if Arvol had found some discrepancy in his reports.   
Then Louis was forced to face facts. The heir, the one indispensable person in this expedition, the man he'd been harboring feelings for since he'd been about eighteen, was missing. He was missing in hostile territory.   
"Oh gods..." Louis breathed to whoever might have been listening "Let him be alive." He sprinted back to the generals' tent and shook them awake, telling them what was going on. They seemed just as panicked as he did, which was validating but also terrifying. They got up and roused their colonels, and the news that something was wrong went down the chain of command, the men who should have been guarding Arvol's tent were discovered to be missing again, and a patrolling private reported them found with a pale face. The men were in a pile not too far from the camp, all dead. Arvol, thanks be to all the gods, was not among them. Although, from the way the men had been killed, Louis wondered if it would be a mercy to wish his friend dead.  
They'd had all of the blood sucked out of their bodies.   
The next day, the fighting began.


	9. A Change, A Meeting, and A Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years have passed between the end of the last chapter and the beginning of this one.

The next time Louis saw Arvol, they were both different men. He had sworn that night in the rain, sworn to himself and to the gods and to the absent Arvol, that he would find him. He would not rest or return home until his prince was found, dead or alive. After two years, Louis had begun to pray that Arvol was dead. When they finally broke the city of Lacloria, it had been five years since they had set out from the capital in the sun, backed by singing men. Fully two thirds of those men were now dead, but Louis had pressed on. When Arvol had been captured, technical command of the force had fallen to his two generals, but everyone knew that there had to be one leader, and the person who had been generally agreed on was Louis, who had been shadowing Arvol since the beginning of the campaign.  
Command had been pressed into his hands against his better instincts, and he had taken it, because he made a vow. Five years of making the sacrifices and logical choices as required by war had changed Louis. He was more ruthless, showed less emotion outwardly, which made the men he now considered his own cherish the few times he showed them he was human all the more. The privates had begun to refer to him as the Man of Ice, which he didn't mind. The only time he cried now was in private, alone where he was sure no one would see. He couldn't let his weakness damage the resolve of his men. He had told Arvol that the only way he could better serve his men's morale was as a martyr, which he had become.  
Louis hadn't been back to the capital. He told himself that it was because he had to stay and command, but really it was because he was unable to face Caria. He couldn't face her fury, or her forgiveness. He'd made her a promise that he would protect her fiance, and without at least the knowledge of how badly he had failed, he couldn't take it. So he had remained at the front.  
He now understood the nightmares that had haunted Arvol's sleep after his visit to the forest of the Wild Ones. He now wore his armor like a second skin, and his sword never left his side, even when he slept. His voice had gained a new note of command which he would've considered foreign and out of place on his own lips before the campaign.  
When he saw Arvol again, it was as the prince was dragged into his command tent just outside the now broken walls of the Lacloria fortress city. He looked like he hadn't eaten properly in months, the clothes he wore were tattered and not his own, and his eyes were haunted. When he looked up and saw Louis sitting at his desk, the two of them froze. "Louis..." he breathed.  
"You're alive." Louis kept all emotion out of his voice. All hope, and the explosion of jubilation he was feeling, had to be kept inside, just in case.   
"Not... exactly." Arvol lifted his top lip, and a pair of protruding fangs gave Louis all the confirmation of his fears that he needed.  
Louis's icy facade came down, as his exhaustion finally caught up to him. He put his elbows on his desk and leaned on them, staring at his former friend. "We were too late." He said, voice breaking. "We did all we could, Arvol." Louis felt his eyes filling, and the two men who had dragged the prince in shifted uncomfortably.  
Arvol nodded. "I know you did. Louis... um." he glanced at the two soldiers.  
"You're dismissed." Louis told them curtly.  
They blinked "But sir," one of them protested, "we'd be leaving you alone with a vampire. No offense, your highness, but vampires aren't to be trusted under any circumstances, you said that yourself Commander..."  
"That doesn't apply to the prince. Now go." They turned and left, with several unsure backwards glances. "Alright, they're gone." He turned back to Arvol, looking a question at him.  
"I... I didn't think you'd like them to be here if you were going to cry, but also.. um, I was... I wanted to ask. Can I go home Lou?" He looked at Louis with hope in those begging, blue eyes that Louis had missed like a drowning man misses air. Arvol's confident attitude was gone, and Louis felt mildly lost as to how to talk to him without it there. "I mean... if I can't, I understand why. I can't be trusted, of course, there's no way that we know of to cure vampirism and I've made my peace with it if you have to... but if you do, I'd like... I'd like it to be you." His sentence stopped and started so many times that it took Louis a moment to realize what he was saying.  
"Arvol! Gods, I'm not going to kill you!" He stood abruptly and walked around his desk, grabbing Arvol's shoulder, throwing caution and his carefully cultivated detachment to the winds. "We'll find a way to reverse this, you're going to be fine again." He said firmly. "As soon as we mop up here, I'm going to take you home."  
"Really?" Arvol met his eyes, eyes gone wide in shock and hope. "I can go home.." he breathed, mostly to himself.  
"Yes. For now you need to find someplace dark enough for you to spend the day, right? No direct sunlight. I suppose we'll travel at night on the way home, and stay in those hostels along the side of the road during the days..." Louis mused "I'll catch you up on what's been going on while you've been... wherever you were. And if you're up to it, you should tell me what happened to you. But tomorrow. I have to go rein in the men, and reinforce discipline..." He let go of Arvol's arm. "Let's go find a place for you to stay. And do you need to... eat, or something?"  
Arvol shook his head "No, no I've got a night or two before I need to do that again."  
"Alright. There's a building I've set up a command post in, it's got a basement that stays quite dark. That should work, I'll have a cot moved down there." Louis said, reverting to his commander voice, leading Arvol out of the tent and past curiously staring soldiers and the broken fragments of the section of wall which had finally given way. He took him to the command post building, and led him down into the basement. "You won't mind if I put guards outside?"  
"No, of course." Arvol said in a subdued voice.  
"Alright, I'll send someone with a cot and such... I'm sorry, but I really have to go."  
"Then go, don't worry about me." Arvol gave him a gentle shove in the direction of the door.  
Louis went out and did as he'd said, then went to find General Kamien and General Meric's replacement, whose name he had trouble remembering. He really did have to stop the men, or they'd sack and burn the city and pillage and rape at will. Five years of senseless bloodshed had given them all some serious anger to work out, and if no one slowed them down, they'd expend it all on this city. Louis was of the opinion that they should be allowed to do so, but it wasn't good for them, and it was worse for anyone who wanted to use this fortress ever again. Inevitably, someone would, because of its tactical necessity to the nation.  
A thankless half night of arguing with overly excited officers later, Louis managed to collapse into his own bunk around dawn, and slept solidly until halfway through the next day.


	10. A Confession, A Story, and A Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should probably prompt some more serious things in the tags, but everything is very vague. Arvol's been tortured in a lot of ways the past five years, so please be careful reading.

The next night, as soon as the sun went down, Louis took a pair of chairs and a collapsible table to the basement and prepared himself for the worst. Or he thought he had. When Arvol began to pour out his story, the horrors that had been visited on his body and mind, Louis began to wonder how Arvol wasn't a gibbering mess. He should have been a nervous wreck, and yet here he was, relating in a calm voice five years of physical and psychological torture.  
"I don't really know what they wanted," he had begun, "but I figured out that it was probably to drive me mad. So I sort of clung to the hope that you would come and get me, and I didn't let them do that. Do you... really want to hear everything that happened? I don't know what you've seen and done since I was taken, but before, you wouldn't have wanted to hear it. I would've just said 'If you can imagine it, they probably did it' and we would've let it go at that..."  
"I want to hear it. If I don't know, it will just nag at me. If you can tell it, I'd like to listen."  
Arvol nodded, then closed his eyes and took a breath. "I guessed that I would have to tell this at least to my father, so I figured out how I would probably phrase it, give me just a second..." He opened his eyes and looked at Louis apologetically. "It was something to focus on, these past few months." Then he looked down at his hands. "The first thing they tried was darkness, and quiet. I used to bang on the walls until my hands bled, and scream until my voice gave out, just so that I could hear something. The first few weeks were ghastly, before I realized I could make any noise I wanted. They gave me water and food through a slot under the door, in bowls that had had something done to them so that I couldn't beat them on things to make sound. For a while, I tried talking to myself, but I discovered that after not too long of that I was hearing other people who weren't there answer, so I stopped. I couldn't let them make me mad, you see. I think if they had kept that up for any longer than they did, it might've done it. There were days when the silence felt so /heavy/, it pressed on me and I couldn't breathe. No one spoke, and nothing creaked or scraped or clacked, and it got to the point where I could barely tell the difference between silence and my own voice. Sometimes my voice would just quit working. I don't know how long they kept it up, but it must've been a long time. I could tell days were passing, there was a small light under the door that faded and grew so I assume that was sunlight, but there was no way to tell how many days, there was no way of recording them short of carving them into my skin, and I wasn't that desperate yet. A few more weeks and I probably would've snapped, but for some reason they quit." His eyes remained fixed on his hands, the sleeves of the shirt Louis had sent down not quite covering the scars on his wrists, scars that could only come from repeatedly wearing those wrists ragged on chains and handcuffs. The hands Louis had memorized, watching Arvol complete every task he was set over the years that they were children, were now clenched, white knuckled, on each other. A ridge of discolored skin ran along the left one, the cut that had created it must've been bone deep. Louis wanted to take Arvol's hands and look into his eyes and demand stupid things like 'what did they do to you' and 'how can I help' and 'where are they, how can I make them repay you'. But he knew that this couldn't be properly paid for.   
"The next thing they tried was sex. The frankness startled Louis out of his staring reverie. "They brought in all sorts of people, and they did things that I won't repeat to me. They made me ask, every time, and I couldn't not do it. I betrayed her, Louis." No need to say who 'her' referred to. "I asked them to do those things that they did, but they /made/ me." He looked up for the first time in the narrative, eyes wide and vulnerable. "Do you think she'll ever be able to forgive me?" Louis just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Arvol returned his gaze to his damaged hands. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive myself. Sometimes I believed what they all told me, that I wanted those things, that it was the only way I really enjoyed. You know, I was a virgin? I'd waited for her, because I thought it would make her happy. I wasn't ever going to be disloyal to her, even though I knew that they would mock me for it. They'd say I wasn't actually a man, and things like that, but I didn't want to make someone as angry as Usil made my mother, and I didn't want to accidentally bring someone into this world whose existence Caria would resent. I would have been loyal to her." He shook his head. "I don't know how long any of these things went on, but some of them seemed longer than others. This stretch all sort of blurred together for me, but it didn't really threaten me because I knew that it was all things being done /to/ me, you know? So it couldn't possibly drive me insane, it was just a torment. They gave up after a while. After that, they tried pain." He stood, and turned around, and with a pained-sounding grunt, tugged his shirt off over his head to show Louis. His back was a mess of scars, whip marks standing up from the skin, darker marks from cuts and one slightly faded brand in the shape of the Lacloria crest at the base of his neck. They wrapped around his torso, and didn't stop where his trousers began to hide them. Arvol stood with his arms folded across his chest, shoulders hunched slightly forward, back to Louis, who sat in stunned silence, taking in the marks, clearly years old, and the amount of pain that must have been visited upon his friend in order to cause them.   
"Gods..." Louis breathed  
Arvol laughed shortly, a humorless sound, turning and pulling his shirt back on. "I'm pretty sure they didn't have very much to do with this Louis. If they did, they're very cruel, and I won't believe that." He sat back down at the table, and shrugged slightly. "In the case of this, I think I will just say that if you can think of it, they probably did it. Short of actual amputations, almost anything you can imagine. And I suspect you can imagine quite a bit, after however long you've been out here..." He shifted slightly in his seat, looking over at Louis for confirmation. Louis just nodded, and Arvol returned to his story. "After that they tried deprivation. Food, water, sensation, light, sound. This time they tied me so I couldn't bang on things and I don't really know what they put in my mouth, but it didn't taste at all pleasant so I assume it wasn't particularly sanitary. I spent most of that time trying to concentrate on hearing a sound or seeing a light or feeling any sensation at all in my extremities, because the position I was in wasn't good for blood flow. They brought me food occasionally, it was never enough, and when they brought water it was too much, and their torches were always too bright, and the sound of feet in the corridor was too loud. I did as I was told when they came in, because after the first time I was too hungry to resist, and after that there was no point in resisting. All they usually wanted was for me to kneel and cringe and cower for them, they seemed to get a kick out of that. So I starved for a long time. It seemed to drag, but idle time always does. I tried to think about things to take my mind off of the fact that I could practically feel my body eating away at itself, but I was usually to hazy to think very coherently." He looked down at his hands again. "Then, one day, they came in and they brought me out. They took me down a hallway, away from my cell, to a nice room, with furniture and cushions and a table set with any kind of food I could want. I ate until I thought I'd be sick, and then they took me back to the cell. The next day they came and took me to the room three times, and I started to learn not to eat too much again. I was allowed to bathe and eat and read the books in the room, sit in the comfortable chairs and recuperate. I didn't know what they had planned for me next, but I wasn't going to not eat. One day, at least a month later, when I was beginning to look human again, in my own eyes, Kaleric Lacloria showed up. He looked like death, and the soldiers who usually escorted me from the cell to the room and back had been replaced with men who immediately took my cuffs off. Kaleric asked what had happened to me and if I could describe everyone I remembered, and he seemed so concerned, and incredibly angry, I assumed it must all have been a mistake, and that I couldn't possibly have been there for as long as it seemed. I was beginning to feel normal again, almost five months later, and I had begun asking Kaleric if I could go home. We'd been talking every day, about all sorts of things. It was nice to have someone there, but I mostly tried to get him to talk about when I would be able to leave. He kept putting me off, saying that I needed to recuperate, or that there was still a war going on after all." He shook his head and smiled a bit wryly at himself "I should've figured it out.  
"When I was feeling completely like myself again, I'd even begun to excersise to try to regain some of my strength, he came into my cell one night." Arvol tilted his head and brushed his hair back away from his neck, exposing a pair of scarred-over puncture wounds an inch or so apart. "He gave me these, and he spilled his own blood into the wounds. I don't understand what happened, precisely, but for the next day, I could barely move. I thought I'd known agony, but that... words can't describe it." He shook himself. "The next night, they brought someone into my cell. They were calling her Caria, and she looked /so/ much like her, Louis, they could've been sisters. And I could feel the blood thrumming through her veins, I could hear it and it... it sang. It called me, and I couldn't resist. I killed her. It was horrible and messy and satisfying and a rush like you wouldn't believe. Always before, they'd cleaned up any blood that had been spilled in the cell, but they left hers. They took her body but they left the blood that had seeped into the cracks in the walls and between the flagstones in the floor. And I couldn't hide from it, I could smell it. I could smell the hundreds of bodies in the castle, and hear all of their conversations, hundreds of heartbeats. I could taste the mineral tang of those hotsprings in the basements of the east wing, and I could still taste her blood in my mouth. I could feel the life of everyone in the castle, all around me. It was worse than when I couldn't feel anything, or see or hear, because it was suddenly loud where before there had been silence and bright where it had been black and it was overwhelming and it never stopped. I think I had a nervous breakdown within the first week. Kaleric kept me there for another few months, I'm sure because I could feel the sun rising and setting. They brought different women in every time I needed to feed, but they all bore at least a passing resemblance to Caria. I must've killed her a hundred times, in my mind. I still knew that it was something that was being done /to/ me, so I could sort of bear it.  
"Then they let me go. They took off my handcuffs and gave me some money and a new set of clothes and let me out into the city. Your men were already encamped around it, so I couldn't escape, so it was no real risk to them. I learned very quickly that I can only go for so long without feeding, and this time I was doing it all by myself. The first time I fed on my own I stayed in the man's house for a week." He said in a voice filled with shame. "When you finally broke the city, I was thinking of stepping into the sun if you didn't succeed very soon. I don't know if Father will let me live, when we get home, but I have to take the chance, because in the palace library there are hundreds of volumes on vampires, and if there is a cure, it will be in one of those books. It has to be." He finished very softly.  
Louis just sat in silence for a moment, taking it in. "Darkness, Light, and Fahd." He finally swore. "You've been to the seven hells, haven't you? Alright, I'm leaving Kamien and that other one to mop up here, and start the men home, you and I are leaving tomorrow night. Tonight, you're going to go back into that city and find someone who deserves it, then you're going to come back here and have a bath and a change of clothes and we'll find your horse, and I'll fill you in on what's been going on outside your own personal sphere of hell. Then I'm going to sleep, and you're going to... do whatever you do during the day." He stood "Come on, I'll walk you out past the pickets."  
Arvol blinked, then a determied expression settled on his face and he nodded and stood. "Alright." Then he smiled, faintly, weakly, at Louis. "Thank you."  
Louis smiled back and nodded, but found that Arvol's smile wasn't causing his heart to race as it always had in the past. He put it down to either the state of his friend, and of his smile, or to desensitization to all emotion from the war. He led the way out of the basement, past the inner ring of patrolling soldiers, and out to the picket line. "The watchword tonight is hellfire, rather apt, I suppose. You have a long time until sunup, but don't dawdle, alright?"  
"Alright." Arvol turned and very quickly vanished into the night.   
One of the veterans standing watch nearby, a man who Louis had met several times before and whose name he remembered, if not where they'd encountered one another, whistled lowly, impressed. "Special scout, sir? I've never seen anyone disappear that fast before, and I served with the scout corps for a while."  
"No, Actas," Louis responded quietly, "he's a vampire."


	11. A Relationship, A Monster, and A Dawn

The next night, when darkness fell, Louis had arranged things so that he could safely leave his men in the hands of subordinates he trusted. He disliked abandoning the still-burning city so quickly, but getting Arvol back to his capital city clearly took priority. Arvol's stallion had been killed two years after he'd been captured, and Louis had quit keeping a spare warhorse around just in case Arvol returned the year after that. A lieutenant found an acceptable mount during the day, and had that horse and Louis's saddled just before sundown. The new mount was a bit skittish about the smell of vampire, which Louis couldn't detect but was sure the horse must be able to, and it seemed to cause Arvol some concern. It took altogether too long to get started that night, but Louis hadn't expected Arvol to be perfectly able to ride for days on end anyway, so the delay was reasonable. Louis was just used to the organized speed of military operations, he supposed. When they were finally on the road there was some opportunity for them to talk, because, they discovered rather quickly, anything much faster than a sedate walk caused Arvol's still healing wounds to break open and give him considerable pain. So they walked their horses close together, like they always had as boys, riding along the night-dark roads of Lacloria and talking. Their conversations were wide-ranging, and Louis had to admit that he was being a bit more guarded than he ever had been towards Arvol before. It seemed to confuse the prince, who opened up as he always had. Their discussions covered everything from the campaign, to what Arvol expected when he arrived back home, to what medals he was sure Louis would be awarded, to the condition of the Lacloria countryside through which they rode. It was mostly devastated, soldiers of both armies taking what they needed and bandits ranging at will because the government of Lacloria couldn't prevent them and the government of Day wasn't going to send policemen into an active war-zone.  
They stopped each night in hostels previously maintained by Lacloria soldiers. Some were occupied by Louis's reserve forces, but most were abandoned. Louis had to admit, if only privately, that he was more at ease when he and Arvol stayed alone in empty hostels. That way, there was less opportunity for Arvol's... 'condition' to become general knowledge through inevitable army gossip. After five years of mainly unchallenged command, Louis could probably have asked the men not to discuss it. The vast majority of them wouldn't, but there was always that outstanding chance, and it was much safer if Arvol's state of undeath remained a very closely held secret. Already, the information would probably reach the capital before they did, in the form of hearsay and overly dramatized stories. That couldn't be helped, with the number of Lacloria refugees who'd probably heard something about it streaming away from the mopping up going on at Lacloria city. Louis was thinking about damage control.   
The relationship between Louis and his childhood friend was strained for the first few days. It made sense, Louis supposed, but it still made him incredibly uncomfortable. Their friendship had been the one constant in the ever-changing atmosphere at court, and it felt odd not to speak freely with Arvol. Still, the established roles of their close childhood had changed, they were different men.   
Louis had changed from the politically oriented ambitious young man he'd been, the pinnacle of whose dreams had been to marry a woman as perfect as Caria Wreneston and establish himself as a close adviser to the king, carrying on the Lefebvre name and reputation as intellectuals and politicos with ties to the royal family. He had become a veteran of five years of a messy war against an enemy at least as intelligent and as himself, and considerably more ruthless. He had been forced to emulate that implacability. All traces of softness, of highborn assumption, had been ground forcibly out of him. He had become a soldier, a commander, even more than he had ever been a courtier. Now, the pinnacle of his ambition involved the survival of every man he could salvage, and the victorious conclusion of the Lacloria campaign.   
Arvol had changed as well. He'd been the pampered, over-dramatic, incredibly self-confident prince of the Sunfire family, who had wooed women and claimed the loyalties of men with equal ease. That person was lost, and Arvol became a shell of himself who jumped at his own shadow and had a haunted look in his previously bright eyes. Louis was fairly sure that where before Arvol would have simply glided over the surface of polite society and social functions, now he would probably pass out from the sound and the chaos. He was no longer the stunning prince who had so captured Louis's mind and affections. He was cringing and afraid of his own shadow as he never had been before. All traces of his former half-arrogant competence had vanished, leaving him... where? When he had first noticed that Louis wasn't sharing as much as he always had in the past, Arvol had closed himself off as well. They no longer had that same rapport, and conversations were awkward and short. Silences that would have usually been filled with Arvol's cheery voice now remained vacant.  
On the morning of their third night riding, Louis decided he couldn't stand the silence anymore. "What are we doing?" He demanded while they were beginning to set up camp, dropping his pack into the dirt and turning to face Arvol.  
"Um... riding home?" Arvol answered, confused, looking up from unpacking his bedroll.  
"No, what are we doing about each other? I am tired of feeling like we're tiptoeing all the time. I'm tiptoeing because I don't want to make anything worse, and I wish I knew what was going on in your head because I'm worried and I don't know how to help you if I don't know what's wrong." He paused, made a face, and tried again. "I mean, I know what's wrong, you were tortured for five years. I'm not sure how much I can pry about that, and I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell me to back off if I ask something uncomfortable. Why are you tiptoeing?"  
Arvol smiled slowly, as if rediscovering an expression half-remembered. "Gods, Louis, there's got to be something wrong with you. You used to get that kind of thing right the first time. I'm tiptoeing because I don't know you anymore. You gave me the clinical description of the last five years, but you didn't tell me what happened to you, so it feels like I'm talking to a guy I barely know. I've kinda lost my touch when it comes to that stuff, sorry."   
"No, that's not what I-" Louis began to apologize  
"Let's not do the thing where we both try to say it was all our fault, because it was clearly a group effort in misunderstanding. We're not in one of your romance novels." Arvol's smile grew to a shadow of his former grin, but his playful tone eased something in Louis's chest. At once, the realization that this was really Arvol, sitting not five feet from him, sort of hit Louis. He sat down, a bit stunned by it.   
After a moment, Louis retorted to Arvol's jibe. "I only read those because you were breaking my heart."  
"Right, growing up and marrying Caria, stealing us both away from you." Arvol teased  
"Exactly," Louis smiled in return, the expression feeling stiff and disused. Honestly, his genuine smile had been disused these past five years. There'd been little to smile about.   
"So, was there anything in particular you wanted to stop tiptoeing around, my heartbroken friend?"  
"No, not really. I just want us both to be able to talk freely again."  
"Talk freely then." Arvol challenged, still smiling.  
A moment of consideration later, a question came to Louis "Do you dream? I mean when you're sleeping during the day. Or do you die during the day? I thought I read that somewhere."  
Arvol winced slightly, "You seem to have lost your diplomatic edge while I was away. Yes I dream, and I sort of die. I don't really know much, I didn't exactly get to take a course in how to be an undead monster."   
"At least I had a diplomatic edge in the first place, unlike a certain prince who got by on personality and station. And I thought there might be instinctive knowledge of some kind, like with weres and nymphs." Arvol noticed almost visibly that Louis hadn't disputed the 'monster' comment.  
"Well, there is, but I don't think you'd like to know what it's about."  
"Of course I would. The more I know, the less tiptoeing is required, and the better I'll be at killing hostile monsters."   
There it was, a slight wince that came with the word 'monster'. Who had whipped Arvol with that word, to make him wince that way when confronted with it? Unfortunately for Arvol, Louis couldn't think of vampires without categorizing them as monsters. He'd seen too many friends be killed by them for that. Louis realized somewhat helplessly that Arvol was, and probably now always would be, a monster to him. A monster whose fiance Louis had made a promise to. But he still couldn't argue with Arvol on the use of the word.  
"Alright, if we're not tiptoeing. The instinctive parts are things like not going out in sunlight, and how to, um, feed. Basic things that anybody who's ever read a book about vampires could tell you. Er, a book about us."  
That part, Louis could argue with. "You're not part of any group of those creatures, don't try to lump yourself in with them Arvol. You don't enjoy..." He paused, unsure. "You don't, do you?"  
Arvol looked appalled and slightly hurt "Of course not Louis, who do you think I am?"   
"Forget I asked. But I had to make sure, you know."  
He nodded, acknowledging the need but not forgiving the hurt quite yet. /That/ at least was like him.  
"Alright, your turn. Ask me something invasive and personal that wouldn't have embarrassed either of us before." Louis said, trying to change the subject.  
Arvol's ghost of a smile returned, and he returned to unrolling his bedroll, "That doesn't give me a very specific list of questions, you know. Nothing embarrassed either of us, before."  
"Exactly." Louis responded easily.  
"Alright then." Arvol paused, thinking of a question much as Louis had. "How are you holding up? You didn't want any part of a war, much less military command, the last time I saw you, so how did you end up in charge, and are you okay?"  
"That's more than one question. And a very long story, as well."  
"I've got time." That small smile turned wistful. "All the time in the world, actually."  
"Well, in that case. I suppose I do owe it to you, after all." Louis took a deep breath, thinking of how to begin. "The morning after you were taken, Kamien and Meric were arguing about who was going to take charge of the armies. You remember how they were, rivals to the end. The problem in this case arose from their being exactly the same rank. Neither of them was willing to give command to the other, so while they were having 'discussions,' I went to check on the men. You know, to give them the news and try to calm them down, and to stop the sergeants from having them break camp. When I got back to the general's tent, they had decided that neither of them was going to be able to persuade the other to step aside, so they were going to send back to the capital for a third party to either decide or take charge, since clearly no one there was capable." Louis settled back against his bedroll, propped up against something solid and relaxing into the story.   
"I walked in, and they both looked over and got this gleam in their eyes," Louis chuckled a bit, remembering their expressions and his bewilderment. "Remember I had no idea that they'd decided on a third party. So they both asked me where I'd been, and I told them, and Meric got a very thoughtful expression. Kamien turned and saw it and told him no very vehemently, and I got even more confused. They started arguing about me in the abstract, and I stood and listened, and by the time I caught on it was too late. Kamien gave in and Meric asked if I would be willing to take command. I told him no, too, at first, but he started explaining why I could and all of his reasons seemed so plausible at the time. It also went to my head, I suppose, but eventually I accepted. So I ended up in charge of the whole force." He concluded.  
"That's... actually more or less what I'd expected, in all honesty," Arvol chuckled slightly. "Those two couldn't make a compromise if it killed them. So, what happened then? Five years is a long time to be in the military with no real previous experience."   
"I had more than you!" Louis retorted, amused, then sobered. "But honestly, these five years haven't been my best. I wasn't prepared for command, and I made a lot of bad calls early on. Kamien and Meric did as much as they could to mitigate it, and I took a lot of their advice. A few times I decided against them, and they never argued exactly, but they made their disapproval clear. By the second year I'd worked out most of the problems and gotten enough practical experience to know what I was doing, so I quit asking for advice nearly as often. Meric died halfway through that second year, and Kamien tried to step up and take control. Things got exciting for a while, because he'd assumed that I'd just step back and let wiser heads take charge. He was forgetting how much of a back-burner he'd been sitting on in regards to the actual action, and how much I'd been in the spotlight. I hear the general feeling among the men was that if someone took command from me, there'd be a mass mutiny. So I got to keep it.  
"A few friends got killed in a really nasty siege not long after. That's when I started acting like I didn't really have emotions, which turns out to be quite a good tactic for dealing with large groups of soldiers. If you show little outward emotion, they work that much harder to get it from you." He sighed a bit, "I lost the connection to the rest of the men I'd befriended, but that turned out to be for the better. If I'd been incapacitated by grief, I wouldn't have been nearly as effective in charge and would've gotten more good people killed." He shrugged  
"Isolation will have the same effect..." Arvol pointed out tentatively  
"Oh, I figured that out too." Louis assured him. "I had one of my break-downs in the fourth year, but I didn't have any princely idiots to drag me out of it. Kamien eventually dumped some cold water on me, which had essentially the same effect. I was out of it for a few hours. Then I decided to make a few friends, but not with anyone likely to end up on the front lines. A few of the healers, one of the camp followers, and two or three of the veterans. I'd reached a sort of equilibrium, finally. And then you showed up and messed it up, as usual." He teased, ending his tale on a lighter note.  
"It's my duty," Arvol agreed, smiling a bit, and repeated his question. "So, how are you holding up? You had all those tough, sacrifice type decisions to make. I doubt they stopped being hard when you made your peace with having to make them."   
"Oh no, of course not. I think I know how you felt all those years ago when you came back from the Wall with nightmares." Arvol looked sympathetic, "I wish I could go back and change some of my choices, hindsight being what it is, but I learned not to think about it. Command requires concentration and focus, extraneous emotion gets in the way. I had to control myself. The army's supposed to teach you discipline, right?"   
"You don't have to anymore, you know," Arvol said, worry and compassion in his tone. "I'm back. You can talk to me. You don't have to be the commander made out of ice. After all, I can't help you if I don't know what's wrong." He offered a small smile.  
Louis smiled back, closing his eyes and relaxing against his makeshift cushion. "I've really missed you, Arvol. I still don't understand this trust we've always had. It was like this when I was brought out to the court, too, wasn't it?"  
"I remember that." Arvol smiled a bit at the memory, "I trusted you because you didn't have anything to gain by betraying me, and for some reason you took that as a bigger compliment than I meant, then we just sort of... stayed that close."  
Louis nodded. "It was a bigger compliment than you knew, no one at court should trust as easily as that." And after a beat added, "I'm glad you did. What's happened to us, Arvol?"   
"We grew up. Granted, it involved torture and a war to get us there, but we were kids when we left home, and I think we're both adults now. We ought to be, after what's happened."  
"We ought to be..." Louis agreed. "Arvol, why am I still so scared?" Louis whispered, looking up at the ceiling of the little room they were in, wondering where the fabled maturity and understanding of adults was. Where was that feeling of confidence his father had always projected? Where, the unerring knowledge of what to do next?  
"I think we're scared because we know there's nobody to catch us anymore. We're the men now, we're supposed to know what's going on and how to deal with it, but we don't. I think we're scared because we've realized that the people who were making the decisions before didn't know either. And now we've got to do it, and live with the consequences. And that's terrifying." Arvol answered quietly.  
Louis lay, staring at the ceiling, listening to the birds come out and chirp the morning's arrival as the sun rose, safely away behind the curtains, and wondered when he'd come to think of the sun as a threat instead of a salvation. Likely around the time a certain light-sensitive prince had been dragged back into his life. "Good morning." He said quietly, and pulled his blankets up over his shoulders.


	12. A Return, A Friend, and News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Chapter Title: Louis doesn't understand sexual tension, and Caria is a lot more chill than they make her out to be.

Riding into the capital in the dead of night was a new experience for Louis, and not one he was inclined to repeat. He was mildly offended, in a military way, by the lack of discipline the guards at the main gate exhibited, barely glancing at Louis and Arvol before waving them through. The sound of their horses' steel-shod hooves on the pavement of the lower districts was grating, when unbalanced by the usual bustle of daytime in the city. Louis got the distinct feeling he was being watched. Arvol looked edgy, but then again, he usually did. Nearly two weeks alone on the road from Lacloria had let the two grow accustomed to each other's new peculiarities with ease that could only come from time and a friendship as odd as theirs. Louis watched Arvol for signs of trouble, knowing that his enhanced senses would detect it before Louis's could. He didn't think trouble was likely, not on the well-lit main road, but it had been five years since he'd set foot in the city, and he'd witnessed first hand what the demands of a war could do to previously civilized people. He hoped the effect hadn't reached this far, but was prepared for the worst nonetheless. Nothing leaped at them, and nothing looked any different. Perhaps the lanterns were a little dimmer, and there was a bit more trash hidden in the gutters. Fewer banners and celebratory trappings hung from windows, but in general, the city seemed the same. Despite his hope for the city's safety, the lack of change seemed a bit inappropriate to Louis. Five years of fighting and the deaths of hundreds and thousands of soldiers on the front lines of a war less than a week's ride away, and the city seemed virtually unaffected. With the knowledge of Arvol's suffering, and that of countless others lost to the appetites of their unholy enemies bearing heavily on his mind, Louis was privately a little shocked to find that the rest of the world had carried on, though he knew logically that it should have.   
"Thinking heavy thoughts?" Arvol asked, voice light and with a smile that had become familiar again tugging at his lips  
"You aren't?" Louis responded curiously  
"No, I'm just happy to be home. Caria's going to be furious with us, you know."  
Louis groaned slightly, anticipating the royal dressing down he was likely to receive. "I know. And what's worse, I haven't been back here at all."  
"You've been avoiding her for five years?" Arvol asked incredulously. "I may just stand back out of the line of fire and wait."  
"You wouldn't do that to an old friend, would you?" Louis pleaded, "I need you to draw her attention off so she doesn't commit homicide in the throne room."  
"The last person to do that was my great grandfather, and he was king at the time. He'd also just sentenced the man to death, so it was completely justified. He wasn't ever reprimanded for it, maybe Caria will build on that example..." Arvol mused, smiling.   
"You can't leave me to her, you know how she gets! I'll be in several pieces unless you intervene."   
"You'll probably be in several pieces anyway, once the High Military Command and my mother get through with you."  
"Oh good gods, I hadn't thought about your mother. The commanders I can likely get away with ordering off to other things, at least until they realize I have no real authority. I'll have to deal with mother head-on though, won't I?"  
"Yes you will. Complete with tears and hysterics and hugs and cheek-pinching. I always knew you were her favorite. Two gold crowns say she doesn't even pay any attention to me for the first ten minutes at least."  
"Oh I'll take you up on that; the long lost son home at last from torture and war and who knows what? I'll put money on her to attack you with hugs and hysterics almost immediately."  
"We'll see." Arvol grinned. "I bet the vampire thing puts her off more than it did you."  
"Doubt it." Louis shook his head negatively. "She's a mother. Mothers love and fuss regardless of how weird and monstrous their children become."  
"Monstrous? You wound me." Arvol said, mock offended, but a flash of hurt in his eyes told Louis he'd stepped over the line.  
"I didn't mean it like that, Arvol. If I thought you were a monster, I'd have killed you when you were dragged into my tent. Weird, yes. A monster; never."   
Arvol smiled fondly at him. "I missed you. A lot."  
Louis nodded, smiling slightly at the middle distance. "You've said that before. Now come on, let's get you home." Joking about the reactions of their families was all well and good, but facing them would be another thing entirely. Louis summoned up all of the calm he could, and continued riding instead of bolting back for the road like his instincts were begging him to.  
They rode up to the palace gates and roused the somewhat drowsy guard, who, upon realizing who he was faced with, snapped into stuttering apologies and excuses. Arvol reassured the man that he wouldn't be reported or demoted, we all have these moments, it's really alright, and the gate was promptly swung open wide enough for the two of them to pass within. A sleepy stable boy took charge of their horses in the courtyard, and Louis sent a page to fetch the warder. When Patrica Julin tel Julin arrived, wrapped in a heavy robe and with her short hair in disarray, she looked neither friendly nor at all disposed to be kind to whoever had interrupted her rest. After discovering the cause of the disruption, she became even less inclined to positive reactions. "I see you two finally managed to drag yourselves back in. At the third candle-mark after midnight. Whatever possessed you to show up /now/ of all times, instead of waiting until a civilized hour. Really any hour /after/ the sun is up would have been better." She groused  
"Still as bright a ray of sunshine as I remember, Patrica." Arvol smiled and quipped brightly. "I've got some unpleasant news for you; I can't function at hours after the sun is up."  
"What, you've managed to become nocturnal in the past five years? Makes sense, fighting vampires. Maybe you made a good decision after all. For once." Patrica admitted with grudging respect.  
"Something like that." Louis smoothly cut off Arvol's next retort. He'd never understood the vague antagonism between Arvol and the warder, who was two years older than Louis and from a much smaller and less wealthy family. The post at the palace was a great one for her family, and for her personal opportunities, so Louis didn't see why she constantly endangered it by wrangling with someone in a position to throw her out on a whim. Perhaps it was that she knew Arvol would never do such a thing based on personal irritation, but the arguments still seemed like an ill-advised idea to Louis.   
"We need to see my mother and father, and also several of the advisers..." Arvol mused  
"Tomorrow." Patrica and Louis said firmly, together. Despite Louis's confusion about her choices, they'd always gotten along quite well. It probably had to do with the queen expecting them to take care of Arvol, if in different capacities.   
"Why tomorrow?"   
"Well, for one thing, you need to rest, and I need to break the news to some of them gently, during daylight." Louis said   
"And for another, your father is ill and your mother is worrying, they're both finally getting some rest and you're not going to disturb them." Patrica finished for him.  
"Now you're just ganging up on me, and it's unfair." Arvol protested, then added in a more serious tone, "and what do you mean, my father is ill? He was in perfect health when I left."  
"You haven't heard?" Patrica asked incredulously  
"Obviously not, or I wouldn't be asking." Arvol retorted  
"I just assumed you were dense or forgetful. Never mind. He's come down with a wasting cough, and the entire kingdom's been hanging on his weakest breath. It's..." She paused, then struggled on, "the physicians aren't particularly hopeful. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. With you gone, everyone's been on edge. Usil's got his beady eyes on the throne, but your mother's been holding out that you or Louis would come back from the war if something major happened. She's asserting that Louis is a national hero and as much her son as Kisena's, and should take the throne if you weren't just missing. As much as I hate to admit it, I'd rather have you around than the succession struggle that'd happen if you were dead. Good to see you back." Patrica's backhanded compliment seemed to mean a great deal to Arvol.   
Patrica was an interesting study; she was a woman soldier, not so uncommon as to be remarked upon, but uncommon enough among the gentry. When she'd been introduced to the court, it had been as part of a very small group, in one of the gap years between the coming-of-age of most noble children. She had briefly been a peer of the generation that contained Arvol and Louis's parents, and therefore had a disorienting habit of referring to all of them by their given names. The generation closer to her own age, she was less familiar with, seeking to distance herself and seem more capable and mature by lack of association with the young and stupid. She /was/ mature and capable, far beyond her years. Hence, the post here. It was a great honor for someone her age, and her maturity just made her petty arguments with Arvol that much more baffling. Louis had decided long ago that he would never understand Arvol or his relationships with anyone, and had quit trying, but sometimes seeing them bothered his analytical mind.   
"Thank you." Arvol responded genuinely, reaching out to clasp her hand gently.  
Patrica averted her gaze from his, muttering "It's my job," as if to herself, shook her hand free, and then turned back to them. "Well, I'll get you two settled into your rooms, then I'm going back to bed. My bed is /warm/ and /occupied/, and if you two hadn't come blundering in, I would've had quite a pleasant rest of the morning." She grumbled, turning away to lead them into the palace. They knew where their rooms were, Arvol's at least couldn't have been changed. Louis's could've been, if an emergency had arisen, but it turned out that none had. All of his things were still exactly where he'd left them. The odd sense that things should've been different returned to him as Louis set his coat on his bed, talking with a servant about not opening Arvol's curtains the next morning, a subject on which Arvol himself had likely neglected to instruct them.  
The servant nodded and scampered off, and a few others tended to the room. Someone lit the fire in the hearth, and then all of them withdrew, leaving Louis to his thoughts. What was he going to tell the king and queen tomorrow? What was he going to tell Caria? Usil? The advisory staff?   
Caria was easy; for her, the whole truth. Nothing but that would suffice, she deserved to know how badly he'd failed her. He'd promised to look after Arvol for her, to keep him whole and protect him from himself, but Louis hadn't managed to deliver. She'd be rightly furious with him for not coming home to explain himself to her earlier, but would likely forgive him. That was how it always worked between the three of them. They'd be angry, but it never lasted long. Louis almost hoped Caria would be angry. At least that he could argue with, and maybe less guilty. But Caria would forgive him. She was that kind of person, when it came to him and Arvol.  
The queen would be ecstatic to see at least one of her boys home in one piece, and probably wouldn't ask for anything more than the bare bones of the story before dissolving into hysterics. To the king, he would let Arvol explain. That was, thank all the gods, not Louis's job.   
Usil was a mystery. Louis had never really gotten to know Arvol's bastard brother, and mentally kicked himself for the oversight. Deciding what to tell someone who would already be frustrated by the prince's return was going to be difficult, without the added hurdle of knowing next to nothing about the man. He'd have to discuss with Arvol. The advisory council was easier, a simple description of the war and some brief discussion on how to cure vampirism would be enough to start them off arguing with one another instead of coming together to make a firm declaration of their opinion.   
Louis shrugged out of his shirt and trousers while he thought to himself, and fell into the enormously soft bed with a grateful exhalation. He had missed the luxuries of home while out in the field, but doubted he'd sleep much after growing accustomed to sleeping on the ground or in hard cots. Well, he'd enjoy the sensation of feather pillows and silk sheets if nothing else. Unfortunately for his planning, he'd underestimated his exhaustion, and fell asleep almost immediately.


	13. A Scream, A Confrontation, and A Reassurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (I'm sorry, I didn't proofread this one! I'll do it tomorrow, I just realized it's 12:30 and I have to get up at six for water polo practice and I'm literally going to die if I don't go to sleep really really soon, I just couldn't leave this sitting unposted on my computer overnight because I don't trust my laptop not to accidentally delete it or smth idk, but sorry)

Late the next morning, Louis woke to screaming. He bolted upright, hand flashing out to grab the hilt of his sword before he had time to fully get his eyes open, mind still hazy from sleep. A moment later, he realized where he was and that the thing he was gripping wasn't his sword, but the bedpost of the soft and blanket-swathed bed he was lying in. He released it, muttering a bleary swear word and rubbing at his eyes while looking around for a robe. Having to be decent before charging out to investigate things was a frustration, but his manners prevented him from simply discarding modesty in favor of alarm and curiosity as he would have were he back in camp with only soldiers about. Louis never thought he'd miss living in tents surrounded by thousands of sweat-reeking men, but he came close as he searched for his heavy dressing robe. Snatching it up and swinging it around his shoulders, he left it untied as he hurried out into the hallway. "What's going on?" He asked the few people gathered there, in his best no-nonsense, explain-yourself-right-now-soldier voice.  
A maid was gasping for breath, eyes blown wide and trembling against the wall directly across from Arvol's doorway, surrounded by three other maids and two pages. Louis groaned slightly, realizing he should've given better instructions. He gentled his tone, and approached the woman. "What's going on?" He repeated, much more softly.  
"H-h-he's- He's-! I swea', I dint 'ave nofthin' to do wiv 'is... 'is..." She was panicked enough to be reverting to her native accent, and not the higher class Dayish one generally cultivated by the servants in the palace.  
"It looks like he's dead, is that it?" Louis asked, attempting a kind tone he'd heard Arvol use to gentle everything from raging drill sergeants to wild horses. She nodded mutely. "Well, he's not dead, he just sleeps very soundly."  
"W-wiv no pulse, m'lord?" She asked, shakes quieting somewhat.  
"Ah." Louis tried to keep his frustration out of that sound, afraid she'd take it as disapproval. "He's not dead, I'll promise you that much. I can't tell you any more, and I have to ask you all," he shifted his gaze to encompass all of those present, "not to spread this information around unduly. If you could avoid mentioning it at all, that would be best." Louis thought he must be getting rusty, he knew servants and young nobles were the worst gossips around, and asking them not to spread information was the easiest way for it to become common knowledge almost immediately. They all agreed fervently with fear in their eyes, though, and he had some small hope that it would be at least a few hours before he had to deal with the repercussions of this. He released them with a flick of his eyes, and they scattered.  
The next order of business would be to dress appropriately for a royal audience and decide who to seek out first. The clothes in his wardrobe, left here five years ago for emergencies and sudden unexpected occasions, were too tight across the shoulders and a bit loose through the waist. He'd have to get re-fitted, when he finally finished rushing about and making sure nothing was irrevocably damaged. Louis sighed, resigned himself to limited movement, fitted his sword belt around his waist, and attached his scabbard. The belt was easily the most used thing he was wearing, and he made a face at its undecorated utility. It would not go over well at court to appear armed for anything more than ornamentation, but he could not bring himself to leave it behind in his rooms. Having it with him at the right times had saved his life more than once. Well, before the war he never would've been under arms at all, much less wearing a sword he was so clearly familiar with using. The various nobles would just have to get used to it. If Arvol could've pulled this sort of abrupt change off, and he had on multiple occasions, who was to say that Louis couldn't do it now?  
Closing the door behind him, Louis walked out into the hallway again, this time at a more sedate pace, and began to make his way towards the throne room. Who to tell first? The queen would be a grueling exercise for his rusty acting skills, Usil would be difficult for other reasons and required some consultation with Arvol. Caria, then? All of these audiences were going to be difficult, but at least Louis knew her best. She wouldn't become hysterical, probably. She wasn't the type.  
"Lefebvre!" Apparently, his first conversation had been decided for him. Patrica was stalking down the corridor Louis was passing, looking tired and stressed. That was usual. What wasn't usual was her focus on him, and the lack of honorifics around his name.  
"Yes?" He answered calmly, and was rather proud of himself for keeping his voice level. Maybe he hadn't completely lost his touch.  
"You came in here last night a few candle marks after midnight with a prince who didn't look very dead to me, and I want to know what's going on. So talk." She demanded, coming to a halt in front of him and planting her fists on her hips.  
Louis blinked, a bit startled by the peremptory demand, but merely responded, "Is a public hallway really the place for this discussion?" Playing for time, at least, came back to him easily. Whatever he told Patrica would be the story that spread the farthest the fastest, and he'd expected to have told two or three other people and come to a general consensus before deciding what to release to the general population.  
Patrica narrowed her eyes at him, then nodded tersely and turned on her heel. "Follow me." She ordered in that same tone of voice, and led back down the hallway she'd emerged from. Louis followed a few paces behind, trying to organize a short version of the story he'd been preparing to tell Caria. After two connecting corridors and a flight of stairs, Patrica lead him into a small room that seemed to be some sort of recreational room for the palace guards. Two idle-looking men in civilian clothes were lounging in chairs close to the fire, tossing dice onto a short table between them. They looked up when Patrica entered, and got up when she jerked a thumb towards the door. Without complaint, they left the room and swung the door shut behind them. "It's safe to talk in here, those two will keep everyone else out."  
Louis raised an expressive eyebrow, but nodded and sat in one of the recently vacated chairs. "Alright. Is it safe to talk to you?" He asked carefully  
"I won't go spreading rumors, if that's what you mean. Unless you want me to, but I doubt that. I just want to know what's going on. I can't protect anybody unless I've got all the information on what happens in the palace." She said firmly.  
He considered for a moment, then nodded. "Alright, I'll tell you what you can spread around and what you need to keep to yourself. We have to release something, before the rumor mill gets ahold of the prince's return and makes up some wild story that we'll have to combat." Patrica would get a shortened version, but Louis decided not to begin today by lying to someone who was just trying to do her job. His time with the army had taught him nothing if not that it was impossible to be efficient without full knowledge. "The prince was captured, tortured, and turned by the Lacloria vampire seethe." He began bluntly. Patrica ground her teeth, but nodded, not interrupting. "He was captured before the first combat encounter, and was returned to us when we took Lacloria city."  
"Five years..." Patrica breathed, stunned. "It's a wonder he's alive. Or- whatever he is."  
Louis nodded again, looking down at his hands, "Undead, actually. I'd prefer if that stayed between us and the royal family. The rest of this can be common knowledge. I took over the forces and, with advisement from the present generals, ran the campaign. We were only as successful as we were because the men knew their business and I wasn't really asked to make any hard decisions until I'd learned what I could from watching the generals do their jobs."  
Patrica leaned back in her chair, taking it in. "Well. I've known a few green commanders I would trust with a large force, but never... gods, without /any/ officer's training? You weren't even there in any military capacity, were you?"  
Louis smiled wryly. "No, I was Arvol's aide. A political adviser, and something of a last line of defense. Both of which, I may mention, were not jobs that I completed well. The only job I did wasn't even mine."  
"You did that one wonderfully, though, and it was probably the second most important of the three, so I think you're beyond reproach. At least the kind that could actually affect you at this point."  
"Thank you, Patrica." Louis sighed a bit. "Well, what else did you want to know while you've got me talking?"  
"How angry is the Wreneston girl going to be when you tell her about this?"  
"Incredibly. Would you consider coming with me, to help me fend her off?" He joked, feeling a bit pathetic about the whole thing.  
She laughed, shaking her head. "I couldn't help you, laying hands on the intended of the prince is not a risk I'm willing to run, not even for you."  
Louis sighed in mock disappointment. "Somehow I thought you'd take that position. Well, if you don't hear from me in the next few hours, send the janitorial staff up to the throne room."  
She smiled and stood, going to the door to let him out. "Alright, so what can I tell people about the prince's condition?"  
"Fatigue from the journey and campaign, and the nocturnal assumption you made last night seem to be the logical answers, wouldn't you say? I would add that he's ill, to account for the fact that he's a good deal paler than when he was last home, but I don't want to alarm anyone."  
"That seems good, no reason to have another member of the royal family for people to worry about. I'll spread the word."  
"Thank you, again."  
"It's my job." She replied. They parted ways, and Louis's mind was considerably more at ease. Patrica was trustworthy, and it was relaxing not to be the only one who knew what was going on with Arvol. Recapturing his original goal, Louis oriented himself, and headed off towards the throne room again. Caria would likely be there, helping the queen prop up the king, or else taking petitions alone. The usual group of mindless courtiers and pages and minor nobility was clustered around the doors, chatting inanely about nothing, with all serious illicit business banished to less public corridors. They parted, murmuring, as Louis passed them. The doors of the throne room were thrown open for the day. A royal policy of listening to any and all petitions personally allowed for long hours spent sitting or standing around, being forced to hear the complexly worded speeches of rival nobility, a great deal of which was usually spent picking apart said monologues, looking for flaws to mock at later dinner parties. Perhaps ten petitions would be heard before lunch, and ten after, before the court would adjourn for dinner and entertainment. The real work of the kingdom was done, of course, in the king's private study and away from the droning, self-important peers of the realm. In years past, Louis had greatly enjoyed sitting in the throne room and analyzing his competitors for royal favor, not that he'd viewed any of them as a threat. He'd just enjoyed watching them twist and struggle with each other, their tactics were endlessly entertaining and educating. Now, realizing the futility of all of this, it frustrated him. A war had just ended not a week's ride east of this city, and yet these men were doing nothing. Caria sat in a simple chair placed in front of the throne, and an overdressed man stood at the podium that had been erected before the dais. The main topic of discussion today seemed to be Caria's unmarried state, and Liam Orphelius was orating as Louis walked in.  
"My lady, I cast no aspirations as to your personal strength of character, nor upon your affection for our missing prince, but there are men in this kingdom who would not hesitate to make attempts on your person, taking advantage of your lack of a strong protector who is able to stop such!"  
Louis's frustration and dislike of Liam bit him, and he decided to exercise his right as an age-mate and ranking peer, and interrupted. "I suppose you'd know, wouldn't you Orphelius?" All eyes turned to the back of the room, as a gasp went up from the gathering.  
"Louis!" Caria was the first to recognize him and regain her voice. She was out of her chair, down the steps, and across the room before anyone else woke up enough to realize what was happening. She flew into his arms, wrapping him in a tight embrace and demanding, "Where have you been?"  
Louis smiled slightly, wrapping his arms around her after a moment of stunned stillness. "The warfront, I trust you remember that?" He teased  
Caria pulled away, and punched him lightly in the arm. "Of course! You couldn't spend two weeks away and visit, just for an update?"  
The gathering was following this exchange carefully, eyes tracking back and forth between the two of them. Louis glanced around, then returned his eyes to Caria's delicate, beautiful features. "I couldn't; I'm sorry. I've got so much to tell you, but if you're busy...?" He sent an inquiring look back towards the chair in front of the throne.  
"Not at all." She declared. "I think Liam has gotten his point across fairly well, haven't you?" She asked, turning to regard the man with a no-nonsense expression that rivaled Louis's Ice General face.  
"O-of course, milady. I have nothing more to say, I'd just like you to consider my petition is all."  
"Liam, go home to your wife and quit pestering me. If Louis is back, so is Arvol. You might as well leave off, you and Usil have lost your chance at the throne." Another gasp rose from the nobles, who all fell to muttering as Liam Orphelius drew himself up and stalked out of the throne room, unable to retort. Caria turned to address the gathering, "We shall adjourn for a time, I will hear more of your petitions in the afternoon." A general murmuring and nodding, and several people stood. The group dispersed slowly, as Louis and Caria walked back to the throne end of the hall, passing behind the dais to the smaller meeting chamber that was somewhat concealed there.  
Caria led him inside, closed the door behind them, and politely dismissed the servants who lingered near the other doorway. She went to the door opposite the one they'd come in by, closing and barring it, while Louis slumped into a chair. "Gods, I haven't been home in too long," he began ruefully, "if I thought I could mouth off to Liam like that without thinking of the repercussions."  
Caria turned to regard him with surprise-widened eyes, "I assumed you decided it wasn't too much of a bad idea. I suppose I should have realized you would change..." her voice trailed off as she sat down in another of the high-backed chairs. "So. What really happened, Louis? I've gotten the official reports, of course, but those are remarkably uninformative. I want to know what happened to you and the army... and to Arvol."  
Louis drew in a deep breath, folded his hands in his lap, and looked at them. His hands, which had been as soft and delicate as Caria's the last time he'd sat here. Hands which now were mapped with scars and callouses that told the tale of his past five years better than he ever could. Hands that for a moment didn't belong to him. They couldn't, and for a moment his mind drifted, not sure if his eyes were seeing what he thought they were. A few sharp breaths, then a memory of Arvol's voice telling him to calm down, that so long as Arvol looked like himself, then everything had to be real and sane. Louis took another deep breath, and his gaze remained on his hands as he poured out the entire story to Caria. He told her everything, this woman to whom he'd made promises he hadn't kept. He told her about the campaign, and his own misgivings about his command, his slow acceptance, then the attempt by his generals to take it away. He told her about his men, the ones he'd known and the ones he'd sent to their deaths, and he told her how for the first year he'd tried to keep track of the names. He told her about the third year, when he'd broken down and gone catatonic, and how his own sense of duty had pulled him out of it. He told her things he hadn't told Arvol, about advice Louis had gotten from the prince that had helped him in desperate times. He told her about how her own voice had come to him sometimes, reminding him to be human. He told her everything he knew about what happened to Arvol. Through all of it, Louis never made eye contact. He couldn't face her while the story was pouring out of him, couldn't bear to know what she thought of what he'd become. What he'd made himself. When his voice went hoarse, she got up to get him a drink from the sideboard, and he didn't look at her even then. He drank it and continued, unsure if his voice was still his own.  
When he realized he was crying, he didn't bother to try to stop it.  
"I'm sorry." He finished, knowing it couldn't make up for the enormity of his mistakes.  
A soft hand landed on his shoulder, and he finally looked up, meeting Caria's eyes. She was crying too, and her eyes were full of compassion, not condemnation, and that was almost worse. "Louis. You have nothing to be sorry for." Her voice throbbed with conviction, musical and forgiving, and that was the last Louis could take. Louis, who had been called the 'Man of Ice', broke and sobbed, and Caria, who should hate him, pulled him close to her and cried with him.


	14. A Review, A Withdrawal, and A Laugh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's really short oops I just realized I haven't updated in forever and I should probably do that.

When, with difficulty, both of them regained their composure, they remained close. Caria managed to squeeze into the chair with Louis, and he couldn't say he minded either her weight or her presence. In her gentle voice, she explained to Louis everything that had happened while he was gone. "I think we share a knack for accidentally gaining authority we aren't prepared for, Louis. I've been taking petitions and helping Elienes with the governing of the country since the second year. King Robert fell ill late in the first year, I'm sure you heard that news." Louis nodded, he remembered the damage control he'd had to do to keep up the men's morale. "Queen Elienes did her best, but you know how she is. She got hysterical when anyone tried to press her into a decision, and nothing was getting done. Liam was looking all predatory and making noises about a regency, and touting Usil's blood right to the throne in case of a succession debate, and in all honesty Usil wouldn't be a bad choice if there was any chance of that coming up. As it is, Liam was trying to force an early jump on the throne, and it didn't work out. There still needed to be somebody running the country though, and since you, Arvol, and Kaleric were otherwise occupied, that left me and Liam. In reality, he's not incompetent, just greedy and not particularly moral. He gave me a good fight over it, but Liam's wife /is/ my sister, and Elienes still hates Usil, though I was loathe to stoop to using that at first." She sighed and shook her head. "I've been regent in all but name since midway through the war. Liam's still stalled by public opinion, but he won't be for much longer. Though, since Arvol is back I'd thought my troubles were over. Apparently we still have some work to do."  
Louis nodded. "We'll be looking for a cure, of course. First priority. In the meantime, I've told Patrica the official story, and we'll have to have some sort of ceremony for Arvol's return. We can still schedule everything after sunset for a while, going with the excuse of fatigue and differing sleep schedules, but soon people will start to wonder why I'm adjusting so well but Arvol isn't."  
"Alright. I'll tell Elienes, and she and I will decide what to tell the king. You should go find Germane and discuss how quickly we can have a party thrown, and how respectable a crowd we can expect to show up-" Caria's voice cut off as the door from the throne room swung open, and a man strode in.   
Louis had met Arvol's half brother enough times to recognize him on sight, but the last time they'd encountered one another, Usil had been fifteen years old. He'd grown from a slight, short boy on the edge of Louis's attention into a man who would rightly be the focus of any room he entered. Usil's features were so similar to what Arvol's had looked like when he'd been healthy that they could've been twins, courtesy of their shared father. His mother's contribution, though, was in his entirely darker coloring. Where Arvol was blonde and blue eyed, and occasionally looked like an angel in the right lighting, Usil had black hair tugged back into a tail, and eyes of a deep chocolate brown. Handsome, certainly, but no light could make him look angelic.   
Upon seeing Louis and Caria as close as they were, one of Usil's eyebrows rose, but he voiced no comment. He bowed deeply, perhaps more so than was necessary. "Louis tet Lefebvre." He greeted, sounding a little surprised. "Caria." He added, straightening, in a voice that was a slight bit deeper than Arvol's, but still retained the musical quality that the prince's had.   
"Usil," Caria returned, "what brings you here?"  
"I had heard that my brother is back. It appears that what I heard is true." He said, nodding towards Louis, "It's a great relief to see you back in one piece sir."  
"It's a relief to be back." Louis responded with a polite nod  
The young man's attention returned to Caria, and he favored her with a small smile, which seemed somewhat rueful. "I suppose it won't be as much of a sorrow for you as for me, milady, but I must regretfully and respectfully withdraw my suit. And, I think, apologize to several people for offering it originally."  
Caria smiled kindly back at him. "Thank you, Usil. There's no apology needed, you were trying to do something honorable by me, which is more than we can say for Liam Orphelius."   
Usil's smile became a trifle more genuine, amused. "It certainly is. I hate working with that snake, but you know how it goes."  
Caria waved a hand, as if to brush aside his half-apology. "Politics. I understand. If you didn't work with him, there's a chance I might be forced to, so I'll say thank you and leave it at that."  
He bowed again, more shallowly this time. "I'll accept your thanks, then, and take my leave. I'm sure you both have things to attend to." He turned on a heel and left again, closing the door carefully behind him.  
When his footsteps had faded from earshot, Louis looked at Caria "What was that about?"  
"He offered to marry me if Arvol didn't come back." She responded simply  
"Isn't that a bit... forward?"  
Caria looked at Louis for a moment, then dissolved into carols of giggles. "Oh Louis, I should've known you couldn't have changed that much!"   
Louis felt, he thought rightly, a little irritated. "Well, it is!" He defended himself  
"You're still such an innocent when it comes to these things!" She responded unhelpfully, trying to repress her laughter  
"What am I missing? Of course I understand that it would be a good choice for him. If he were married to you, the queen couldn't hate him nearly as indiscriminately as she's managed to so far. And he may have a stronger bid for the throne, but you were going to marry his brother, did he actually expect you to say yes? Does he not know how fast public opinion would swing against you, were it to seem like you only wanted to be queen?" Louis asked indignantly  
Her giggles only grew stronger, and she leaned her head on his shoulder affectionately. "I don't think he thought it that far through, Louis honey. He's just barely turned twenty after all. I think he genuinely likes me, though I'm far too old for him. Also, he was looking to his own prospects. If he marries me, and Arvol's dead, it's like he's stepped completely into Arvol's shoes. He could make a bid for the throne a good deal more easily that way."  
"Ah. Well, in that case." Louis nodded, seeing the sense of the plan and trying to regain as much dignity as he could.   
"It's a good thing Arvol likes you as much as he does, you could've been slaughtered your first year at court if you hadn't so obviously had his favor," she said fondly. "Usil was. Ah, well. No use thinking about any of that now. We both have things to do."


	15. A Reunion, A Shock, and A New Resolve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is short and mostly discusses a panic attack, I'm sorry.  
> Also sorry this took so long to update! My excuse is that school was kicking my butt and now it's summer so I should be able to update with a little more regularity. Plus, I promise some actual action/plot progression in the next chapter I'm just having a little trouble with it because I've been in a creative downswing oops

Louis slumped into his chair three days later, exhausted. A royal ball was not an easy thing to organize in a short time frame, but they'd managed to have Arvol's return celebrated in proper fashion just two days after they'd arrived, a masquerade thrown at midnight to commemorate the end of the vampire war and the return of their long-forgotten prince. Ostensibly, the reason for the timing had been to declare themselves free of the vampires, as there had been no parties after sunset since the Lacloria declaration. It had been, on the whole, less of a disaster than it could have. Arvol had nearly had a panic attack in the ballroom, but had kept it together admirably for a full hour and a half, before pleading fatigue and visibly not-fleeing back to his own rooms to sit and shake for twice the time he'd spent in company. Louis had sat with him, rubbing circles into his back and trying to calm him down, talking in a quiet voice of things that had nothing to do with responsibilities or crowds or vampires.   
Reuniting Caria and Arvol was tonight's task. They'd decided not to do it in front of large groups of people, at Arvol's nervous insistence. He was still afraid of the conditioning his torturers had attempted, afraid he might try to hurt her. Louis sighed, running a hand through his doubtless tragic hair, noting idly that it needed a trim again.   
"Louis?" Arvol's voice came from his doorway.  
Louis turned, trying not to look as if he were about to pass out. "Has the sun gone down already?"  
"Two candlemarks ago, actually." Arvol smiled a bit, coming into the room. "You must be really busy, not to notice."  
"Well, you know. Organizing triumphant returns, public appearances, trying to get letters back to the troops to bring them home. That sort of thing." He smiled at his prince, waving a hand absently as if to brush off the day's work.  
"Thank you. For doing all of that. It really should be me doing it, it's not your responsibility."  
"Since when have you apologized for handing me responsibilities that aren't mine?" Louis asked, amused.  
Arvol lips turned up at that, which Louis counted as a personal victory. "Since about five years ago, actually."   
"Ouch." Louis shook his head, still smiling slightly. "Well. On a different note, are you ready to go see Caria?"  
"I'm... not really sure." Arvol said, smile fading and shoulders tensing. Louis cursed himself. "I'm scared, Louis," he confessed, "I'm scared I'll hurt her."  
"I won't let you."  
"Louis, I'm not sure you could /stop/ me. I trust you with my life, any day and every day, but I don't trust either of us with hers. She's... Well, you know. She's important. She's something else, and I need her to... hells, I don't know. To live. I need her not to be scared of me, but I know she should be because I'm scary now. I scare myself. And I think I might try to hurt her. They..."  
"They haven't changed who you are, Arvol. You can barely hurt other people out of self defense, you wouldn't just attack her."  
"You don't know what they did, Louis, I-"  
"It will be fine. And besides, if there's anyone better qualified to kill vampires, I'd like you to name them." Louis challenged, trying to divert his attention.   
It seemed to work, because he exhaled a huff of laughter through his nose. "Alright, alright. I trust you. Thank you, Louis."  
He smiled at him, borrowing the castle warder's incessant protestation, "It's my job."  
Arvol almost laughed properly at that, amusement twinkling in his eyes. "Yeah, right. You and Patrica both. Okay. I think I'll be alright." He sat in Louis's second favorite armchair by the fire, and rubbed his face. "I'll be fine. She agreed to marry me, right? How much difference can this make?"  
"Well, she didn't seem too phased to meet tense-soldier-Louis, this is a much less drastic change." Louis joked.   
He nodded, amusement not fading. "True, you did go from a pampered courtier and politician to a soldier in the time she missed you. What's a little change in diet to throw her off, compared to that?"  
"Precisely," Louis smiled back at him. "Then, let's go to see her," he suggested carefully.  
Arvol took a breath, then nodded again. "Alright." He stood, following Louis to the door and down the halls to Caria's rooms. He knew the way very well himself, but seemed content to follow after Louis. Perhaps he was getting his thoughts together, bracing himself to tell his story as Louis had.   
Louis, in front, reached the doors first. He knocked politely, and one of Caria's chambermaids opened it. At the sight of him, the woman scampered back into the suite of rooms that belonged to her mistress, and Caria's sweet voice called from inside, "Come in, boys. I'll be right out." They walked into her sitting room, Arvol running a hand in fond remembrance over the gold embroidery decorating the back of his old favorite chair. He fidgeted for a moment, then went to stand in front of it, closer to the doors she'd come from. She came in half-nervously, still managing to look eager to see Arvol. At the rustle of her skirts, Arvol looked up from his contemplation of the whorls of wood on the dark table before her fireplace. Louis stood by the door, ready to leave should the pair of reunited lovers become embarrassingly emotional.   
For a moment, he thought they would do just that. Caria's eyes practically glowed with something that made Louis wish, for just a moment, that he knew what it was like to be in Arvol's place, having someone like her look at him like that. Arvol took one hesitant breath, then Caria took a step forward, and he took one back, hand reaching out for the chair. Louis looked sharply at him, shifting so that he could see his face. His eyes had widened, and his mouth had shut, lips pressing tight, concealing fangs. He almost fell back, when his knees hit the edge of the chair, sat heavily into it, visibly shaking. Caria started towards him, concern on her face and in the way she reached for him, but Louis, suspecting, put a hand out to stop her. "Caria, wait."   
Arvol took a sharp inhale, then purposefully dropped his eyes from his fiance to the table in front of him. "Arvol, are you alright?" She asked, voice breathy with worry.  
He gave a jerky shake of his head, tightly shutting his eyes, body shivering despite the fire on the hearth. Louis walked towards him slowly, while directing Caria out of the room with a commanding point. She left in a rustle of skirts and glances thrown over her shoulder, dark hair tossing to the side as she watched, brow furrowed and eyes dark. "Arvol, she's leaving, it's just me. I'm not going to touch you, and Caria is safe. You can't hurt anyone here." Louis said, low-voiced and soothing. He recognized what was happening, having been in Arvol's position a time or two himself, and met men who'd felt worse than he. A symptom of seeing heavy action, of watching friends die, and sometimes of being wounded badly, some men would freeze, shake, and become unresponsive at the sounds of battle, sharp pain, or even the scent of blood. On one occasion, Louis had met a soldier who'd have these attacks at the mention of the word 'pike,' as a weapon of that description had claimed his sword arm, and nearly his life.   
Touching these men could lead to violence, and Louis had seen more of the healers with black eyes than he cared to think about right now, but always they'd have a companion, brother in arms, or healer speak calmly to them, reassuring them that they were safe. "It's alright. Nothing they did to you can touch her. You're safe. She's safe. You're home, and you're unarmed, and I'm not, and I'm the only one in the room. As soon as you're steady again we're going to go back to your room and sit up reading, and then have a nice bit of steak around midnight, then I'll go to bed and you'll keep reading, and we'll switch guard at dawn. Caria won't come where you are, it's alright." He knew Arvol was doing his best to keep himself together, and couldn't really focus on Louis's words, but Louis kept it up, a low stream of comforting sound, talking about his plans for the next few days, inconsequential things that had as little bearing on the current moment as he could manage. After a few minutes of this, Arvol seemed to come out of it, at least enough for his eyes to focus again on Louis's face. Asked if he could walk, he nodded shakily, and stood, forgoing Louis's offered hand.   
When they reached the relative sanctuary of Arvol's private rooms, the prince slumped into a chair and stared with dead eyes into the fire. He'd stopped shivering a few minutes ago, but Louis still sat nearby, worried. He puttered around the rooms, ignoring his own fatigue from the long day playing politics like an old instrument he'd half forgotten the chords of. He placed a glass of chilled water on the table beside Arvol, sat down for a moment in one of the other chairs by the fire intending to read, then gotten up to continue moving around, arranging the sheets on the bed in a more appealing manner, dimming and relighting candles, and generally making himself busy. "Louis," Arvol's mildly exasperated voice came raggedly from the fireside, "stop fidgeting, you're driving me crazy."   
Louis nearly sagged with relief. "Sorry, you know how I am."   
"I do," Arvol smiled weakly, glancing up at Louis, "You should go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow night."  
Recognizing dismissal for what it was, Louis set down the candle snuffer and put a gentle hand briefly on Arvol's shoulder, then turned to go. "Alright, call if you need anything. I'm just a few doors down." He shut the door gently behind him, and headed back to collapse into his own bed.   
Apparently, however, it wasn't meant to be. Caria walked into the room moments later, not even bothering to knock. "Louis, is Arvol okay?" She demanded  
Louis half groaned and sat back up. "He will be."  
"What happened to him?" The worry in her voice was enough to make him get off his bed and go over to wrap a comforting arm around her shoulders.   
"He had a... panic attack, I think the healers call it. They explained it to me as left over battle nerves, only in his case, it's from his torture. I told you his captors used women who looked like you to try to drive him insane. He was worried he'd hurt you, before."  
Caria nodded, concerned understanding wrinkling the delicate skin of her forehead. "I can't see him, then?"  
Louis shook his head. "I'm afraid not, at least not until he's willing to try again. I'm sorry Caria. I know you miss him."   
She leaned into the circle of his embrace, arms wrapping around his waist, burying her face in his shoulder. "I really do. Gods, Louis, what's going to happen to all of us? He was always the perfect golden boy. Now that's gone. What can we do?"  
"We wait, and do everything we can for him. We pray that somewhere, there's a cure, and we do our best for the kingdom in the meantime. And we keep Usil and Orphelius away from the throne."  
She nodded again, then turned her eyes upwards to look into his. "You'll help me?" He nodded. "Thank you, Louis. I don't know what I'd do without you."   
He smiled faintly, "Have a panic attack, I assume. It will be alright. I promise." He pressed a comforting, fraternal kiss to her forehead, and released her. She returned to her rooms with new steel in her spine, and Louis knew he hadn't lied to her. She would fulfill that prophecy herself if she had to.


End file.
